Bleach - History

History

The earliest form of bleaching involved spreading fabrics and cloth out in a bleachfield to be whitened by the action of the sun and water. Modern bleaches resulted from the work of 18th century scientists including Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who discovered chlorine, French scientists Claude Berthollet, who recognized that chlorine could be used to bleach fabrics and who first made sodium hypochlorite (Eau de Javel, or Javel water, named after a quarter in Paris where it was produced) and Antoine Germain Labarraque, who discovered the disinfecting ability of hypochlorites. Scottish chemist and industrialist Charles Tennant first produced a solution of calcium hypochlorite, then solid calcium hypochlorite (bleaching powder)

Louis Jacques Thénard first produced hydrogen peroxide in 1818 by reacting barium peroxide with nitric acid. Hydrogen peroxide was first used for bleaching in 1882, but did not become commercially important until after 1930. Sodium perborate as a laundry bleach had been used in Europe since the early twentieth century, but did not become popular in North America until the 1980s.