My husband mixed ammonia and bleach while cleaning the bathroom. Now he has breathing difficulties. Could it be his asthma? Should I call 911?
When your husband mixed ammonia and bleach, he made hydrochloric acid. The fumes from hydrochloric acid will kill your husband if breathed in for an extended period of time. I assume when he started feeling badly and had breathing difficulties, he left the bathroom. This is the first step for a small exposure. Fresh air. If he continues to have difficulty breathing, he needs to be seen in the Emergency Dept. If his breathing improves, he'll be fine most likely. However, your bathroom still contains noxious fumes. Open your doors and windows to the rest of the house. Cover your mouth and nose and go into the bathroom. Open the window and flush the acid down the toilet. Let that room air out. If you are unable or too afraid, call 911. The Fire Department has air packs and exhaust fans. Also, DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE!
Ammonia and Oxiclean! wife mixed a ziplock bag of this and left it by the air conditioner vent feed! how dangerous was this to breath?
Ammonia should not be mixed with any chemical, however, the most dangerous is chlorine bleach, and oxy is not a chlorine product, it is solid hydrogen peroxide. In fact, hydrogen peroxide and ammonia are combined in many hair colorings. At worst you'll have a little nasal or lung irritation from the ammonia if you were able to smell it, but not because they were combined. Ammonia is nasty stuff and repeated exposure can cause lung scarring or worse. If your wife is using Oxy for cleaning, she doesn't, repeat, does NOT, need to keep ammonia in the house.
How fast can you die with ammonia and bleach?
Not very fast. Both of those products damage the eyes, nose, mouth, throat, and lungs, and burn like hell. That damage doesn't kill, and death from exposure to these caustic products is painful, long, and lingering. Not a good way to die for sure.
What should I do about bleach and ammonia used in my bathroom?
I cleaned my toilets with bleach and then was using ammonia products for the sink tables and mirrors (I did not mix the products together) However, realizing I had used both bleach and ammonia-I opened the window and ran outside for fresh air and then returned to the bathroom to clean up and put everything away an hour later. I'm sure all is dry and clear-but I'm a little paranoid to use it...Is it okay? I mean I didn't mix the liquids together, I used them separately on separate objects. How long should I wait to use ammonia products after bleach?
Tell Me Why: Why Can't I Mix Bleach and Ammonia?
Because the giant warning on the bottle in bright red print with a skull and cross bones isn't enough, hundreds of people are wheeled into emergency rooms every year after mixing a deadly combination of ammonia and bleach- a corrosive concoction that can cause the lungs to fill with liquid. Should a person misguidedly join these two in a most unholy matrimony, they may feel fine for a short period of time until they notice white spots in their peripheral vision. (That would be the lack of oxygen to the brain.) Then they may feel woozy. Then if they're lucky, they'll wake up on a gurney in the emergency room with a breathing tube down their throat and a totally hot doctor-- who probably thinks they are an idiot. As a rule of thumb, never mix any household cleaners together, ever- as many of them have either a bleach or ammonia base. In the quest for a supercleaner, you'll have to use that good ol' fashioned never-fail product- elbow grease!
What happens when you mix bleach and ammonia?
First of all, you should calm down. Household bleach is typically 91% water, 9% sodium hypochlorite ([math]NaOCl[/math].) Household ammonia is typically 70% water, 30% ammonium hydroxide ([math]NH_4OH[/math].) You are mixing fairly dilute solutions of the two chemicals.The reaction will generate chlorine gas, dichloroamine, trichloroamine, hydrogen chloride, and nitrogen trichloride. If you heated a solution of sodium hypochlorite and ammonia to close to its boiling point, you could make hydrazine ([math]N_2H_4[/math],) not that you would want to.While those chemicals may sound scary, all but one of them are not that bad. Di-and trichloroamine will initially dissolve in water. The same goes for hydrogen chloride (now hydrochloric acid,) and nitrogen trichloride. Hydrazine won’t even be produced provided you don’t boil it.Chlorine gas is not that toxic; you don’t want to inhale high concentrations of the stuff, but it is more of an irritant. You’ll know you have chlorine poisoning well before it kills you (your lungs, throat, and eyes will be burning,) allowing you to seek medical attention. Chlorine is toxic via its interaction with the mucous lining of your lungs. When it interacts with the moisture present, it forms hydrochloric acid. Hydrochloric acid is corrosive, leading to chemical burns inside your lungs. These burns secrete a fluid which, if left unchecked, can fill the lungs, causing you to drown in your own bodily fluids. If you can breath without coughing, you probably don’t have chlorine poisoning (don’t quote me, I’m not a doctor.)Additionally, the vapor pressure of chlorine gas is higher than air, thereby causing it to pool in low laying spots, well away from your nose and mouth.This type of incident usually happens when someone cleans a toilet. They start off with an ammonia based cleaner and switch to bleach when the ammonia based cleaner does not produce the desired result. Alternatively, they start with bleach but it is allowed to react with the ammonia contained in urine.The good thing about this happening while cleaning toilets? This:Flush the toilet, open the window, turn on the exhaust fan, and leave the room and shut the door behind you. Provided you didn’t let the reaction run for 20 minutes, there shouldn’t be too much toxic gasses to begin with. Flushing the reactants down the toilet will quickly get them out of your house.