Read Chlorine

Chlorine

Chlorine is one of the earliest sanitizers used in food processing plants and is used in sanitizing solutions in the form of aqueous sodium hypochlorite or hypochlorous acid. Chlorine can be purchased as a gas, in a stable liquid form (bleach), as a chlorine producing solid (calcium or magnesium hypochlorite as well as in the trichloroisocyanuric acid form) or produced from the chloride salt on site in an electrolytic cell (White, 2010).

As a sanitizer chlorine has the advantage of being generally inexpensive and broadly effective against all types of microorganisms and is thought to act primarily through disruption of cellular proteins and enzyme activity. It is most desirable to sanitize with chlorine in the pH 6–7.5 range as it becomes ineffective as a sanitizer above pH 9 and will evolve dangerous chlorine gas when combined with acid. Disadvantages include loss of activity in the presence of an organic load as well as being highly corrosive to stainless steel and elastomers (especially when not completely rinsed and permitted to dry onto these surfaces). Chlorine also will react with organics to form carcinogenic trihalomethanes (THM) and is restricted for use in some regions.