Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb here. What do you get when you
Speaker 1: combine two molecules of hydrogen and two molecules of oxygen, Well,
Speaker 1: you get H two O two. More commonly known as
Speaker 1: hydrogen peroxide, used in all kinds of industries from food
Speaker 1: processing to papermaking, two textiles to electronics, peroxide is a
Speaker 1: great disaffecting and bleaching agent. It's clear and colorless, and
Speaker 1: when poured over an open wound, peroxide will kill many
Speaker 1: types of microorganisms. It's also an extremely stable compound when
Speaker 1: properly stored, which is why when you buy hydrogen peroxide
Speaker 1: it usually comes in a brown plastic bottle. Here's why
Speaker 1: many chemical compounds break down over time, and hydrogen peroxide
Speaker 1: is no exception. Although it is extremely stable, the solution
Speaker 1: can start to decompose when it comes in contact with
Speaker 1: light and heat. The brown bottle in your medicine cabinet
Speaker 1: is a bulwark against those two cattle lists. Light cannot
Speaker 1: penetrate the tint of the brown bottle, preventing oxidation, which
Speaker 1: you want to prevent because it can result in an
Speaker 1: increase in temperature as peroxide breaks down. It gets hotter.
Speaker 1: As a result, the compounds decomposition rate accelerates. In fact,
Speaker 1: for every ten degree fahrenheit rise in temperature, the decomposition
Speaker 1: rate nearly doubles, meaning that around seventy two degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: that's about twenty two celsius, it decomposes at a rate
Speaker 1: of one percent per year. But if it got up
Speaker 1: to one fifty one degrees fahrenheit that's about sixty six celsius,
Speaker 1: it would be decomposing at a rate of one percent
Speaker 1: per week. By the time it hit the boiling point
Speaker 1: of water, it would be going at nearly two percent
Speaker 1: per day. Moreover, some sort of contaminants such as dust, silver, lead,
Speaker 1: or another metal, gets into the solution, it can spark
Speaker 1: a fire. Although the solution itself is not explosive. Those
Speaker 1: in the industry must handle hydrogen peroxide with care. If
Speaker 1: the solution is in a closed system, such as a
Speaker 1: storage tank, and it starts to break down, press share
Speaker 1: can build up, causing the tank or a pipe or
Speaker 1: line to rupture. The good news is that the bottle
Speaker 1: of peroxide in your medicine cabinet only contains about a
Speaker 1: three percent solution, far less than that the food industry uses,
Speaker 1: for example. You may also notice the peroxide never comes
Speaker 1: in a clear glass container. That's because glass bottles may
Speaker 1: contain dissolved alkali metal ions that can react with the solution.
Speaker 1: Today's episode was written by John Paritano and produced by
Speaker 1: Tyler Klang. Speaking of containers, you can find some with
Speaker 1: the brainstuff logo and other designs in our online shop
Speaker 1: at t public dot com slash Brainstuff, and of course,
Speaker 1: for more on this and lots of other carefully handled topics,
Speaker 1: visit our home planet, has stuff works dot com.