Courses
Courses for Kids
Free study material
Offline Centres
More
Store Icon
Store

The colour of bleaching powder is:

seo-qna
SearchIcon
Answer
VerifiedVerified
377.1k+ views
Hint: The chemical formula of bleaching powder is \[Ca\left( OC{{l}_{2}} \right)\] , and it gives out a strong smell of chlorine.

Complete answer:
The colour of bleaching powder is yellowish white. Basically bleaching powder is a white solid substance, but the colour of bleaching powder used commercially is yellowish white and not plain white.
The chemical formula of bleaching powder is \[Ca\left( OC{{l}_{2}} \right)\] , as the compound contains chlorine, bleaching powder gives out a strong smell of chlorine from itself.
The chemical name of bleaching powder is calcium hypochlorite. It is also known as chlorine powder and chlorinated lime for commercial uses.
The production of bleaching powder is done by subjecting lime to undergo a chemical reaction with chlorine gas.
As the name suggests, bleaching powder is mostly used for bleaching of woollen, cotton or silk fabric. It also acts as a disinfectant to sterilize water, this method is used a lot in common households.
As bleach powder is solvable in cold water, after dilution you can see a little amount of insoluble substance in the solution which is the lime present in the compound calcium hypochlorite (Bleaching powder). This indicates the presence of lime in the compound.
The strong smell of chlorine that you get from bleaching powder is due to slow decomposition of bleaching powder into air. If it stands out for a long duration, it goes into auto oxidation and forms calcium chloride and calcium chlorate.

Note:
The colour of bleaching powder when made is yellow, but the bleaching powder used for commercial purposes is slightly yellowish which makes it look like yellowish white in colour.