Question

Bleaching powder is used for disinfecting drinking water.
A. True
B. False

Answer 1

Hint: Chlorination has long been used to make drinking water safe. So chlorine which is an active ingredient of house bleach is used to remove the bacteria and germs present in the water.

Complete step by step answer: Bleaching powder which is chemically called as calcium oxychloride ($CaOCl_2$) is an active agent which is used to kill germs and bacteria in drinking water.
The main content of the bleaching powder is the Chlorine element which acts as the main disinfectant material.
The process of chlorination has been used for a long time to purify the drinking water.
Bleaching powder in aqueous solution will produce Cl- and OCl- ions. Whereas OCl- ion acts as a good bleaching agent by killing the germs and bacteria. So bleaching powder is widely used as a disinfectant agent.
Bleaching powder when exposed to moisture will release chlorine and this chlorine kills off the germs and disinfects the area. If this is added to water, the chlorine released will react with water and will cause production of oxygen in the atomic state which is highly reactive. If any coloured cloth is dipped in this water, the oxygen will react with the chemicals that give the colour and makes them colourless. This is called the bleaching process.
Also, bleaching powder on exposure to air reacts with $CO_2$ and liberates chlorine gas which is aqueous solution known as bleaching agent and kills the germs and bacteria.

So from this discussion we can conclude that Bleaching powder is used to disinfect the drinking water. Therefore the statement is True which is option (A)

Note: When using bleaching to remove germs and bacteria we have to take care of the amounts of bleaching used to disinfect. Because more use of bleaching in water will have some adverse effect on human health such as skin rashes, irritation to eyes and some severe cases include extreme headache, nausea and vomiting.