If chlorine and ammonia are toxic to mix at home, why is it safe to drink chlorine and ammonia in the form of chloramines?
Household chemical cleaners such as chlorine bleach and ammonia are sold as highly concentrated solutions; the hazardous mixture of these chemicals is due to their high concentrations. In comparison, the concentrations of chlorine and ammonia added to drinking water for disinfection are very low — so low that concentrations are expressed in “parts per million” or ppm. After the conversion to chloramines, average chlorine concentrations in water will be about 2 ppm; ammonia concentrations will be even lower at 0.5 ppm. As an analogy, one ppm represents about 5 tablespoons in a 20,000-gallon swimming pool.
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