What is the chemical formula for oxidation in bleach?

Question

I have a chemistry project due and am not sure how bleach works chemically.

Answer 1

Bleach "works" through a disproportionation redox reaction. Before you jump through a window, all this means is that the substance that is oxidizing is also reducing. It's good work if you get it, so lets see what happens.

The reaction is OCl- = Cl2 + O2. Here the Cl in the hypochlorite goes from +1 to 0 in oxidation state, while the oxygen goes from -2 to 0 in oxidation state (the oxygen is actually oxidized!!).
It is the chlorine dissolved in water which is the chemically reactive agent.

Answer 2

I to find that the naming is annoying at times, but really only some follow the rules. well to name things you need to understand how everything works, so this might be a bit long, I hope you like reading! Alright, this would be easier if I could just talk to you...ummm... we give everything a chemical name 4 a reason, and I think that its so that we dont have to remember that water is made up of 2 hydrogen atoms and 1 water atom. Instead we memorize the name (H2O) and that makes it all easier. really its just memorizing, they all dont follow the rules I honestly found that the hardest. Certain ones have a common name, and we use that, so theres a bit of memorizing. like ammonia has its chemical name, and I 4get what its chemical name is, but we just call it ammonia. Other than that its really just practice. alright, I was annoyed by the 2 part of copper (II) sulfide to, it seems to make more sense without it, but its a completely different compound that way. Hopefully your teacher wont go into to much detail on that. ok im really tired so i cant really remember the point of the roman numerals, but the little 2 on Cu2S means that you have 2 copper atoms and one Sulfer atom, making it copper sulfide. im so sorry I cant tell you what the (II) part is, but its a completely different thing. dont let me confuse you but I think it may be the charge. copper (II) sulfide would have a charge of 2, and so on, but im not sure there! that was a guess! if that didnt make any sense let it go. I really hope that this helped, I'm not sure if it did. Good luck! can u ask some friends?