peroxide

[John R Fortiner]

On Sun, 14 Mar 1999 14:21:27 -0600 (CST) Ron Nossaman
<nossaman@SOUTHWIND.NET> writes:
>>Now that Brian mentions it
>>
>>In Venezuela we do the same, we have quite a strong burning sun all 
>year
>>round, I personally by the peroxide from the grocery store in front 
>of my
>>house. There is a product here made by Miss Clairol pretty strong, it 
>is
>>called Oxidizing Cream, it comes in cream form, much more concentrate 
>than
>>the liquid staff, ( You must use gloves to use it or you get pretty 
>severe
>>burns from it, I got burned once, skin turns paper white, with and 
>very
>>sensitive) procedure is the same, Lay the keys under the sun and swab 
>them.
>>amazing results.
>>
>>Elian Degen
>>Piano Tuner and Technician
>>Caracas, Venezuela  degen@telcel.net.ve
>>
>
>
>Hi Gang,
>Elian's choice of product got me thinking about the whole process of 
>any
>application of any form of peroxide to ivories. Does this stuff 
>neutralize
>with time, oxygen, sunlight, or reaction to the ivory and what's on 
>it? Is
>it rinsed off afterward? I'd hate to find that active H2O2 oozes out 
>to
>greet the fingers of the owner with the next seasonal change. I expect 
>we
>would have heard the stories by now if it were a problem, but I was
>wondering if anyone knew the stable chemical result of the process. 
> Ron 
>
>
Ron:  regarding H2O2  That stuff is basically nothing but water with an
extra oxygen atom attached.  The "problem" if you want to call it that is
that the extra oxygen atom is "barely" attached.  That is why the higher
concentrations of hydrogen peroxide are very dangerous.  Regarding your
questions I'll attempt to answer them one at a time:
1.  As to its becoming neutralized, yes it will in just about any
conditions and time.  In higher concentratiions it is always packaged in
a light proof container to keep the light out ( primarily UV ) that can
cause it to break down into its separate components ( water and oxygen ).
 The component that does the bleaching ( chemically oxidizing ) is the
freed oxygen atom ( well, really an oxygen radical as it is not balanced
electrically and therefore reacts with what is around it with great
vigor.)
2. Rinsing it off afterwards is hardly necessary as all you would be
rinsing off would be water as the oxygen radical has done its work (
bleaching or oxidizing ) and is no longer free to react with anything
else.
3.  No need to worry about " H2O2 oozing out to greet the
fingers........" as it is no longer H2O2.
4.  Re: " stable chemical result " well, how much more stable can you get
than to perfectly balanced as in water?  As I said in response #1.
5.  In a nutshell, H2O2 is only dangerous as H2O2.  Once it reacts with
whatever gets oxidized or bleached, there is nothing to worry about.  
ps.  Better to keep the concentration down and not be dealing with as
unstable a chemical than to have it up even in the 20% range and have a
really dangerous material on your hands.  Sunlight will rapidly free the
extra oxygen radical, as will light rays - particularly UV from either
the sun or black light fluorescent tubes.  If you have other questions
about H2O2 feel free to write me.

John R. Fortiner
Billings, MT.
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