Approximately six years ago I asked my wife to pick up some granular chlorine that you find in pool supply stores. She came  home with four small packages in clear, cheap plastic bags. I wanted one bag, she bought four, we had enough to treat thousands of gallons of water.

I know that getting a little water into a bag is dangerous, so I proceeded to store it as safely as I could, which failed.

I placed each bag into a glass one quart canning jar and sealed it with a vacuum. Then I put the four jars into a box and packed paper around the jars so they were cushioned. I stored them in the shed out back in case a fire occurred.

I was in the garden shed today and happened to look up on the shelf where the jars are stored. The box was damaged severely. It looks like it has been wet and it disintegrates when you touch it.  It never got wet though, because there was a box sitting on top of the box of jars. The top of the upper box is like new, the bottom fell apart when I moved it to look into the box of jars.

I can say with confidence that there is no water damage to either box. However, when I peeked into the box of jars (without disturbing it) I saw that all of the rings and flats on the jars have turned to rust and disintegrated, literally. The flats are just gone.  

So...I have to dispose of this mess.
Suggestions would be helpful.

Rubber gloves and a good respirator are on hand.

Chlorine's pretty reactive, even with just humidity to work from. Dilute in water generously to dispose of it safely in municipal drains/sewers. Not sure how you'd do it without access to lots and lots of water.

Most pool owners I know use chlorine generators and add salt to their pools, rather than deal with chlorine powder directly, anymore.

this stuff is usually only active for about 18 months to two years, i keep it for my [pool i have learned not to buy too much as it does off gas chlorine which destroys any metal around it, this is typical from what i have seen, i keep it in a plastic bucket and make sure to cycle it every two years.  stuff shoud be used every two years , i have not found this to be a stable storage material, keep it away from guns or other metal items as it will turn them to dust,   so you tried to store an unstable material, just plan on cycling it every two years. keep in a tight lid plastic bucket and away from metal .

all glass reagent bottle with glass stopper

wrong take a chem course

I suppose I could put 4 gallons of water into a five gallon bucket, and dump the granules into the bucket one jarful at a time.
Out in the yard, when it's not windy.

...or put in 3 gallons of water and have less danger of splashing?
Don't think I want to put it down my sewer line.

Run a search on it.



I would probably add it to water or water to it depending on what I read.  



I would then be likely to play around with some weeds in the driveway perhaps.  I have a nice gravel driveway.



Play not just with wiki but with some basic chemistry reading as well so you know what you have and what you are wanting to accomplish with it.



I am a person playing at being a redneck, so keep that in mind with the above concept of making some strong bleach and messing with some weeds and stuff.



I may or may not be the type that would consider writing a message in my own yard cause I hate mowing grass as well.

Pool chlorine degrades over time and liberates gas no matter what.  A vacuum won't help and glass is a terrible material for a storage container.  If the chlorine had not disintegrated the lids first, it would have eventually caused the jars to explode.  In my experience, it is not practical to store granular chlorine.  Period.

Like most other chemical reactions, the speed at which it "degrades" and liberates gas depends greatly on the temperature at which it is stored.

So...

One possible solution would be to store it in an old chest freezer - at around -20 degrees F. or so.

Naturally, you wouldn't want to store much of anything else in the same freezer - and you could probably count on the freezer eventually rusting out.

However, I'd bet that your pool shock would last MUCH longer before it degraded enough to be unusable.

That's a lot of energy spent on chlorine storage.  And you're still going to end up with free chlorine in the freezer, which is *highly* corrosive.  But hey, if you want to dedicate a freezer for that purpose . . .



 


ETA:  Before going to the trouble of freezing calcium hypochlorite, I think I'd consider storing pure chlorine as a gas in a cylinder from the local distributor.  I might be wrong, but that seems much safer if you handle it correctly.

Since chlorine treatment can't guarantee good drinking water (Cryptosporidium), I am not sure why you would store it. Wouldn't it be better to store materials to boil water? Or filters?

If you believe the "Energy Star" labels, running a 10 cu ft chest freezer costs roughly 25 bucks a year.

That's $2 a month.

How many bags of pool shock can you fit inside a 10 cu ft freezer?

Several hundred?



Yeh, as I previously mentioned, your junker freezer is eventually gonna succumb to rust rot.

So what?

can you explain how it magically liberates gas in a sealed container???

I'm not going to get into the rest of this, I just want to comment on safety when storing chlorine.
Get the SDS, read it, understand what you are reading. Go look up the rules regarding what it can and cannot be stored with or near. Read up on the consequences for failure.

Chlorine is both extremely toxic and extremely corrosive. Solid forms do break down over time and release gas, even when "sealed" that gas does not care that it's in a container, it will continue to build up until all the solid is gone or it reaches the point where the pressure stops the phase shift. For chlorine gas that is enough pressure to generally break a plastic bag or force its way through seals not meant for compressed gas. Keep in mind, it will EAT most materials you'd use to seal it, so if you want to contain it you need the right stuff.

Storing gaseous clorine, such as a compressed gas cylinder from your local compressed gas supplier, is not as easy to do right as you'd think. It must be stored well away from flammables, oxidizers and inhabitied buildings. It should be protected from the sun and other heat sources. It should not be near any source of ignition. Oh, and if it starts leaking, you need specialized gear to safely handle it, not just a filter mask and gloves.

To really make for a fun day, it is a reportable quanitity and extremely hazardous material even in a very small cylinder. Depending on your situation that may not require any additional paperwork, but if you're setup as a business it will, even if it never leaks. The EPA and other agencies aren't real big fans of the stuff, for good reason. I'm in the business and I just finished getting rid of all the chlorine (and some other stuff) that we had on site, it wasn't worth the hassle. Now when we have a customer for it we get it from our supplier and take it direct to the customer. Empties and partials go directly from the customer to the supplier, never coming to our facility. That hassle was the better choice than the risks and hassles associated with having it in our facility.

Your best bet is literally SCBA gear, you want your own air supply. You also want air flow away from you because it will rapidly damage metals and other parts on your air system (not to mention you). I would bet you have very little actual chlorine left, probably just ambient pressure, but even that will kill you if you got a lungful or two.

Chemical decomposition.  How does it work?








Fill a glass gallon jar halfway with brake fluid.  Then dump in a cup of bleach and quickly seal the jar.  Now that the jar is sealed, is the mixture "magically" forbidden from liberating gas?  Protip:  Don't actually do that


Even better, vacuum seal a pouch of swimming pool chlorine (calcium hypochlorite) in the best quality bag you can find.  You get bonus points if you use a thick mylar bag because it will accentuate my point.  Now put it in a drawer with your grandmother's silverware.  Check on it in a few months and let me know if the bag "magically" discouraged the granules from offgassing hydrogen chloride, chlorine and oxygen.  And please take before/after pics of the silverware.
















Keep in mind that pool chlorine is far from pure.


Disclaimer:  I'm no chemist, but I can Google
 
 
 


 




ETA:  Notice that bags of pool chlorine are perforated.  But that exposes the contents to atmospheric humidity and encourages decomposition.  Bad idea?  Well, it's a hell of a lot better than sealing it in tough, airtight bags and letting them explode in a few weeks or months.


 

After seeing that video of the police officer who tried to go help people after a train car of chlorine gas derailed & ruptured, I'd just as soon not be anywhere around a bunch of it.  

That stuff will kill you.  Fast.  

I've had shock for a year or two in a plastic bucket. Seems to work well. Not sure how long it would hold.

I have a 67 mustang that has thousands of dollars of damage from a winter where my dad left some chlorine or other pool chemical in the garage. nearly every trim piece and chrome part will need to be replaced or rechromed.

I store it in a wide mouth HDPE nalgene bottle with desiccant in the bottle with the pool shock, inside of a small gasketed screw top bucket with more desiccant. It's been good for a year now.

ETA: I just checked and the nalgene bottles are bulged but there was no chlorine smell in the bucket. I guess now I need to figure out how to get rid of this stuff...

Any ideas on disposal? Mix with water in a 5 gallon bucket and dump over gravel seems like it would work?

I have pool shock stored in the plastic tub it came in then stored in a rubermaid box. It isnt bulged and nothing has decayed. Slight smell of chlorine if I open the rubbermaid.

Been in there for about 6 years.

They sell plastic lids for those canning cars at Walmart.  You would have been fine with those instead of metal.  I would also store in a vented plastic box, not cardboard, since it soaks up too much water.

Fixed it for ya.

 



Try that.  And set the container on a metal shelf or near something important that is made of steel.  






http://plastomatic.com/chlorine.html







 

This is really a funny thread...

OK, here's the 411 on granular pool chlorine >>>

For the non-chemist:
Don't try to store it long term, you will fail.  The material is so reactive that it will eat almost anything given enough time.  The only exception might be a glass container - that's a container that is 100% glass - no metal or plastic lids or caps as they will get eaten.  Leaving the material in its original container is not an option as the original container will degrade to the point of failure in a relatively short time (a year or 2 depending on storage conditions).  Lastly, most "normal" folks don't have the tools (mental) necessary to safely handle the material in order to repackage it.  The container the material is sold in is "good" for about a year "or so".  The only reasonable solution for the "normal" folks in this forum is to work in conjunction with a friend who has a pool and uses this material...  Buy a package or 2 and use a Sharpy to write the date of purchase on the package.  Store it in a reasonably safe manner and in 6 months have your friend buy the same amount and give it to you in trade for the packages you have stored for 6 months.  You get a "fresh" stash and the stuff you give your friend is perfectly good as long has he uses it soon...  Rotate every 6 months and you should be safe from degraded/failing containers.  (The guy above who suggested a glass reagent bottle had a good idea except that those containers are not air tight - oops!)

For the "chemist":
OK, I shouldn't really have to tell you how to store this stuff but here are a few "good ideas" just in case your expertise is not in this particular genre of chemistry...
Get glass ampules of an appropriate size and quantity to store as much of this material as you want.
Read appropriate MSDSs and be aware of the "problems" associated with this material.
Break down the material into aliquots that will fit in the glass ampules (do not fill more that 50%), place in the ampules, and carefully seal them completely (point the torch away from the bottom of the ampule, not toward it).  You might want to consider doing this under an exhaust hood or outdoors.
Store in double or triple wrapped, padded containers (original ampule box?)) in a cool (cold), dark place - your chemical/biological (non-food) refrigerator or freezer is a good place.
Check for damage on a ongoing periodic basis.

Alternative method for your consideration >>>
Basically the same as dry shock storage for the non-chemist (above) except you use liquid pool chlorine...  so you need a friend who uses the stuff with some degree of regularity.  Liquid pool chlorine is about twice the concentration of Clorox and has a reasonable shelf life in cool storage in a tight container.  In my part of the world, you can buy this stuff in sturdy 2.5 gallon plastic containers with good seals for a few dollars.  Use your friend with a pool to rotate stock.  You say you don't have a friend with a pool - use pool chlorine in place of Clorox in your own laundry.  You will probably need a friend or 2 or 3 who does their own laundry to help you rotate your stock.  Storing well sealed in a cool place will extend the shelf life of your liquid pool shock. NOTE: Do NOT store liquid pool chlorine in recycled carbonated soft drink bottles.  At room temperature, they will fail (leak) in 4 months or less.  Also, NEVER add an acid to liquid chlorine solutions as it will produce chlorine gas which can be lethal and the reactions can be violent.

Don't like "chemicals" - get or make a workable water distillation apparatus!

Best of luck!  Keep the faith...

- R -