Гипохлорит кальция: свойства, применение и меры предосторожности.

Calcium hypochlorite is an inorganic compound with chemical formula |Ca(ClO)2|auto=1, also written as |Ca(OCl)2. It is a white solid, although commercial samples appear yellow. It strongly smells of chlorine, owing to its slow decomposition in moist air. This compound is relatively stable as a solid and solution and has greater available chlorine than sodium hypochlorite. "Pure" samples have 99.2% active chlorine. Given common industrial purity, an active chlorine content of 65 70% is typical. It is the main active ingredient of commercial products called bleaching powder, used for water treatment and as a bleaching agent.

Calcium hypochlorite is commonly used to sanitize public swimming pools and disinfect drinking water. Generally the commercial substances are sold with a purity of 65% to 73% with other chemicals present, such as calcium chloride and calcium carbonate, resulting from the manufacturing process. In solution, calcium hypochlorite could be used as a general purpose sanitizer, but due to calcium residue (making the water harder), sodium hypochlorite (bleach) is usually preferred.

Calcium hypochlorite is a general oxidizing agent and therefore finds some use in organic chemistry. For instance the compound is used to cleave glycols, α hydroxy carboxylic acids and keto acids to yield fragmented aldehydes or carboxylic acids. Calcium hypochlorite can also be used in the haloform reaction to manufacture chloroform. Calcium hypochlorite can be used to oxidize thiol and sulfide byproducts in organic synthesis and thereby reduce their odour and make them safe to dispose of. The reagent used in organic chemistry is similar to the sanitizer at ~70% purity.

It is a strong oxidizing agent, as it contains a hypochlorite ion at the valence +1 (redox state: Cl+1). Calcium hypochlorite should not be stored wet and hot, or near any acid, organic materials, or metals. The unhydrated form is safer to handle.