Liquid bleach

It is a chlorine releasing bleaching agent widely used to whiten clothes and remove stains, as a disinfectant to kill germs, and for several other uses.

It was the first product intended specifically for that application, and it shortened the process of bleaching newly made cloth from months to hours.

[2] His work greatly improved medical practice, public health, the sanitary conditions in hospitals, slaughterhouses, and all industries dealing with animal products—decades before Pasteur and others established the germ theory of disease.

[3] In particular, it led to the nearly universal practice of chlorination of tap water to prevent the spread of diseases like typhoid fever and cholera.

[4][5] The active agent in liquid bleach is sodium hypochlorite, which gives the product a light greenish yellow tinge and its characteristic chlorine smell.