CHLO-RINE
Chlorine (Cl) always reminds us of laying out by the pool on a summer day. There's that harsh little smell that always came from the room with the pool filters. It wasn't always that way. It wasn't until 1774 that a chemist named Davy isolated chlorine gas. It's not clear like other gases; it actually has a greenish hue to it. Once Davy purified the element, science was able to prove that chlorine existed in thousands of compounds that we use every day. It makes all of those compounds, because it is super reactive. It's the main component in bleaches.
Chlorine is the second member of the halogen family. It's right there in the periodic table with other elements like bromine (Br) and iodine (I). Being a halogen, chlorine is found in many salts that are formed with both alkali metals and alkali earth metals (Groups I and II). Always think about table salt that combines sodium with chlorine (NaCl). Scientists use the letter "Cl" to represent chlorine in chemical equations.
Where can you find chlorine?
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Swimming Pools Have you ever gone swimming? When you go in the pool you're swimming with chlorine. People put chlorine in the pool to kill bacteria and disease. That addition makes the pool clean for you so you won't get sick. |
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Making Paper You know when you write on paper? They use chlorine to make paper. Scientists use chlorine to make paper white. It bleaches the paper of all color. |
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Bleach Whenever you go to wash your clothes and you use bleach... That's chlorine you're using! Chlorine in bleach makes your white clothes really white. It also takes the color out of your darker clothes. That would be bad. |
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Water Purification The next time you get a glass of water you should thank chlorine. Chlorine is use to clean the water that comes to your house. |
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Table Salt The salt on your table is made with chlorine. Scientists discovered that salt is made of one chlorine atom combined with one sodium atom. It's in the ocean first and then on your table. |
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Plastics Think about sprinkler systems. Whenever you put sprinklers in a yard people use white plastic pipes for the water. Those pipes are made using chlorine. It is a special plastic called PVC. That's poly-vinyl-chloride. Chloride is the element chlorine. |
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