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How is HCl related to KMnO4? And why would one combine them? Why not just add a hypochlorite to water if the end goal is to disinfect with chlorine?
by lqdc13 10y ago
How is HCl related to KMnO4? And why would one combine them?
Why not just add a hypochlorite to water if the end goal is to disinfect with chlorine?
- stagbeetle 10y agoIt was a comparison on par with the parent comment's argument. Looking back, it wasn't well constructed on my end and probably led to confusion. What I was going for was: just because they do the same thing doesn't mean they're the same at all. HCl + KMnO4 -> KCl + MnCl2 + Cl2 + H2O
- jcranmer 10y agoThe allegation is that KMnO₄ is undergoing a redox reaction with HCl to produce Cl₂ gas (which is a plausible redox reaction, given the half-reaction potentials). But yeah, in practice you're going to disinfect with Cl₂ gas or NaClO. The water plant I worked at switched from Cl₂ to ClO¯ as primary disinfectant, and the operators were all for it. No more need to manually switch out Cl₂ tanks, no more Cl₂ venting issues (spilling NaClO is nowhere near as bad a Cl₂ leak). (The plant also used O₃ for bonus disinfection as well. The operators hated it at first, but now would throw a conniption fit were it broken).