Today we can’t imagine life without personal hygiene products and cleaning products. Appropriate disinfection, as well as maintaining basic hygiene principles, allow us to prevent the spread of many diseases and pollutants. We learn these principles from our loved ones, in schools, but they are also contained in legal standards. One of the largest organizations that indicate such recommendations is the WHO World Health Organization. Every day they monitor the health of the world’s population and the threats of incoming diseases. In their regulations we can find a number of recommendations relating to the use of chemicals as protective measures. An example referring to disinfectants is the use of sodium hypochlorite, at a certain concentration, as a means of disinfecting medical facilities or homes where patients live.
Ethyl alcohol (the base of all products) is one of the most popular disinfectants because it has the following properties:
- biocidal
Ethanol is characterized by rapid bactericidal activity (10 seconds), effectively preventing multiplication and helping to fight microorganisms – bacteria, archaea, protozoa and microscopic fungi. - virucidal
at an ethanol concentration of 60-80%, it is active against lipophilic viruses (e.g. influenza viruses, herpesviruses or SARS coronaviruses) and most hydrophilic viruses (adenoviruses, enteroviruses, rhinoviruses, rotaviruses).
Propyl alcohol has a similar effect.
Hydrogen peroxide has a broad spectrum of activity (bacteria, including mycobacteria, viruses, fungi and spores) depending on concentration. Its three percent solution, known to us as hydrogen peroxide, is a non-toxic disinfectant that helps fight bacterial spores.
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