Posts Tagged ‘hydrogen peroxide’

Hydrogen Peroxide Structure: Oxygen and Water

Hydrogen peroxide is a naturally occuring compound formed within the cell structures of plants and animals, in the earth’s atmosphere and in the waters that cover the earth.

Hydrogen Peroxide Structure:

Formed in the upper atmosphere when water and ozone combine to produce oxygen and hydrogen peroxide; its true chemical role in the mechanism of climate and rainfall is far from being clearly understood even today.

Hydrogen (H) and Oxygen (O) - building blocks of the natural world.

Hydrogen Peroxide: H2O2

Hydrogen peroxide was discovered by French Chemist Louis-Jacques Thenard in 1818. Coining the phrase “eau oxygenee” to describe its properties, Thenard believed it to be an oxygenated form of oxygen.

Oxidation:

An oxidizing agent is a chemical compound that readily transfers oxygen atoms. Hydrogen peroxide is a common oxidizing agent. It breaks down readily in water, becoming water and oxygen as the oxidizing agent releases its extra oxygen atom. This action of releasing the extra oxygen atom bound in the hydrogen peroxide is what is defined as oxidation.

Without water to dilute the effect, highly concentrated formulas of hydrogen peroxide are volatile, unstable, caustic and downright powerful.

It is this powerful action that makes hydrogen peroxide an exceptional rocket and space ship propellant. The simple power of oxidation when concentrated becomes capable of creating enough energy to lift spaceships off of launch pads and into outer space.

Simple yet effective, the actions of hydrogen peroxide in household concentrations (3 to 9 percent by volume in a distilled water solution) are also oxidative, and therefore, solutions of dry hydrogen peroxide once mixed with water become reactive upon contact with the water, and will lose their potency after approximately five hours. Liquid solutions will maintain their potency so long as they are stored properly. Both dry and liquid forms of hydrogen peroxide offer a powerful, effective, non-invasive and environmentally clean household cleaner, disinfectant, odor eliminator and all around useful chemical compound.

Hydrogen peroxide is produced naturally within plant biomass and plays diverse and pivotal roles within the plant kingdom. It is present in trace amounts in rain, water, and snow. It is also present in higher concentrations in such natural healing springs as Lourdes, Fatima and St. Anne’s.

As a commercial chemical it was first used in the restoration of famous paintings to remove sulphur build up without damage to the paint or canvas beneath. It has been long favored in textiles pulping, fabric production and bleaching for its ability to whiten with minimal damage to fiber structures, and has been used as an environmentally sustainable replacement for chlorine bleaching in many paper and pulp operations around the world.

Hydrogen peroxide is a healthy, environmentally clean and sound approach to clean bleaching of paper pulp, water purification, hydroponic and water garden waters, aquaculture and other industries and is used extensively in the disinfection of food preparation equipment, asceptic packaging of food products and disinfection of hospitals, medical laboratories, and sites contaminated by such dangerous compounds as anthrax, viruses and toxic bacteria.

Edited: October 18th, 2009 under Articles, Blog - No Comments. Tags: environmentally clean, hydrogen perosxide structure, hydrogen peroxide, natural, oxidation

Regulators Rumbling in Back Rooms…

This week brought an unexpected development when an email arrived from a WSJ reporter asking us about home uses of hydrogen peroxide and what we knew about regulations of H2O2…

See what happens if you go away for a week? You miss the news - even if you only see it online or at google or something - a week out of the loop and you miss it! So we didn’t know anything about the Zazi dude or the acetone and beauty parlor peroxide story that everyone else was all ‘a-twitter’ about last week - we were deep in another world in our real estate work - and didn’t even hear one news story all week!

After some conversation with a lovely reporter from WSJ named Ellen, we became aware that what she was wondering was whether or not any of us, or our hydrogen peroxide enthusiasts had heard anything about regulating the sale of our favorite food grade H2O2. Well, clearly we had not - so I thought I should take a look see and check with our known suppliers here and there - anyone seeing anything peculiar? Getting strange calls about not selling FGH2O2?

Happily, thus far it seems that we are in the clear - (but of course after only one week it seems unlikely that there would be any new action or regulation that fast!) But we wanted to make a note of the event - simply because we certainly do not think we should be prohibited from buying and using hydrogen peroxide as we always have - And of course it seems logical that the 3% variety at every grocer and drug store would not be the target of any such crazy idea - after all, 3% H2O2 is 97% water - not exactly easy to use for anything harmful!

But nonetheless, we make note that there seems to be rumbling and so we simply remind ourselves and everyone we know that our friend H2O2 is really NOT a great weapon, for terrorists or anyone else - You cannot simply mix it up and use it to hurt people - it’s just way more complicated than that - and we know there are a lot more lethal ingredients out there that could cause a lot more harm than our friendly H2O2.

Consider that chlorine gas was a major weapon of WWI - I mean, if you want to remove a dangerous toxin, why not look at bleach? (hint hint nudge nudge) And hydrogen peroxide will never break down in the environment to form Dioxin the way chlorine can… So, dear regulators, when this crosses your desks - just shake your head and smile, and let our hydrogen peroxide be - after all, of all the things that might cause harm, surely this is not one at the top of any list -

With all its beneficial and elegant solutions to so many common household challenges, and its clearly superior invisibility in the environmental impact department (remember what else do you use that breaks down to water and oxygen?) hydrogen peroxide is surely no target for the ‘anti-terrorist regulators’. Let’s just hope it stays that way.

Edited: October 2nd, 2009 under Articles, Blog - No Comments. Tags: bleach, bombs, chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, hydrogen peroxide regluation, Zazi

How Green Does Your Garden Grow?

This summer we saw the true fruits of our labor in a garden overflowing with herbs, veggies and fresh fruits. After an early battle with an over abundant and over long production cycle of snails, we finally got them beat back to reasonable numbers and then the garden took off.

Our lilies and stalk flowers are now towering overhead - never seen anything like it… and the herb garden is literally twice the height and volume it achieved last year - lemon balm is four feet tall - oregano, lavender, penny royal, marjoram, thyme and spearmint are all topping 2 and half feet - Gargantua Herbs! We started the basil late, but even it is catching up quickly.

Tomatoes, eggplants and squashes all thriving and producing nicely.

So what was the secret? Well… of COURSE it includes our best buddy hydrogen peroxide - but it also must be attributed to a rock dust infusion.

This year, as Spring was just springing, we took a good supply of last year’s rock dust - which, after sitting out in its outdoor bin over winter had become large soft rocklike clods, and literally just broke them up and tossed them into the gardens until we’d used them all up - and put a nice fat layer of this soft smeary mushy wet “slip” over everything - we didn’t even bother to work it into the soil - after all it was wet enough to seep in on its own.

Then we routinely sprayed with a 1 ounce to 1 quart solution of 3% hyrdogen peroxide in the early weeks - when fog was thick and moisture and damp were the norm (hence the snail explosion!).

After that we continued to water at least once a week with this solution - right into the soil - helps to give those roots the oxygen they need when they’re busy doing serious growing - and voila! HUGE results!

If you need to find the rock dust, look for agrowinn - they make the best rock dust of any we’ve ever found - oh - and we can’t forget the last ingredient - our own home grown worm castings! First batch was ready this Spring as well…

We didn’t have huge amounts, but a little worked into the top soil around new young plants gives them real staying power…

We’ve been watering the Aloe Vera in the window sill with the hydrogen peroxide as well and it’s so big we need to get new pots for it! (Promise we’ll post pictures of all of this in the next few days!)

Happy Gardening! Keep it Green and keep it Healthy!

Edited: August 13th, 2009 under Articles, Garden Uses - No Comments. Tags: agrowinn, green garden, healthy green garden, herb garden, herbs, hydrogen peroxide, natural fertilizers, natural gardening, rock dust, veggies, worm castings