How is chlorine dioxide produced?

While many methods have been discovered to produce chlorine dioxide both at laboratory and commercial levels, our focus here will be to explain to you how our product PERFORMACIDE® generates chloride dioxide for practical on-the-spot use. Here's a section of our product label which shows you the ingredients of PERFORMACIDE®:

Active Ingredient:

Sodium Chlorite: ..................................................................................... 30.5%

Other Ingredients: .................................................................................. 69.5%

Total: ..................................................................................................... 100.0%

The active ingredient is sodium chlorite (NaClO₂) which is the source of the chloride dioxide. But the 'other ingredients' are equally important, one of them being an acid. Without any water, the ingredients will stay as they are in the PERFORMACIDE® sachet and will not react. When the contents of the sachet are exposed to water, they find a medium to react with each other. As mentioned, sodium chlorite is the compound which releases chloride dioxide, but only when it is reduced by an acid in an aqueous medium (water). The result is chlorine dioxide. This can be represented as:

NaClO₂ + H⁺ -> ClO₂ + NaCl + H₂O

Sodium chlorite + Acid -> Chlorine dioxide + Sodium chloride + Water

Sodium chloride is the common table salt. Even though chlorine dioxide is a gas at room temperature, and is released in a gaseous form in the above reaction, it is being released into water, the medium in which the whole reaction is taking place. Now an interesting fact about chlorine dioxide is that it is highly soluble in water, it is about 10 times more soluble than chlorine. So, when you use one of our 'liquid delivery' systems, and you prepare it according to the given instructions, the solution you get will have chlorine dioxide dissolved in it. When you apply that solution to surfaces for disinfection, the dissolved chlorine dioxide will start doing its work.

How does chlorine dioxide kill harmful microorganisms?

Chlorine dioxide eliminates harmful microorganisms through a process called oxidation. All microorganisms are made up organic molecules such as proteins, polysaccharides and nucleic acids. Oxidation can denature proteins and other organic molecules in the walls and inside microorganisms. When their protective walls are disrupted and their metabolic machinery jeopardized, deadly microorganisms die. Chlorine dioxide is a powerful oxidizing agent. The term microorganism is a broad one. It includes bacteria, viruses and fungi. Even the walls of tough bacterial spores are organic in nature, and thus susceptible to the action of chlorine dioxide. Microorganisms do not have the inherent ability to counter chlorine dioxide's oxidative attack. This leads us to the good news: microorganisms cannot develop resistance to chlorine dioxide.