Biocide: Encyclopedia - Biocide

Biocide

A biocide is a chemical substance, such as pesticides, which can be fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, miticides, or rodenticides, etc., capable of killing different forms of living organisms used in fields such as agriculture, forestry, and mosquito control.

Biocides can also be added to other materials (typically liquids) to protect the material from biological infestation and growth. For example, certain types of quats can be added to pool water or industrial water systems to act as an algicide, protecting the water from infestation and growth of algae. Chlorine can be added in low concentrations to water as one of the final steps in wastewater treatment as a general biocide to kill micro-organisms, algae, etc. It is often impractical to store and use poisonous chlorine gas for water treatment, so alternative methods of effectively adding chlorine are used. Adding hypochlorite solutions to pools, etc. is one possible solution. Hypochlorite can gradually release chlorine into the water. Even more convenient for some users are compounds such as sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione (dihydrate or anhydrous), sometimes referred to as dichlor, and trichloro-s-triazinetrione, sometimes referred to as trichlor. These compounds are stable while solid and may be used in powdered, granular, or tablet form. When added in small amounts to pool water or industrial water systems, the chlorine atoms hydrolyze from the rest of the molecule forming hypochlorous acid (HOCl) which acts as a general biocide killing germs, micro-organisms, algae, etc. Chlorinated hydantoin compounds have also been used as biocides.

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Biocide", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki