Awaken, and hear

In honor of recent events, I would like to offer a chemistry lesson.
Namely:

If you combine "muriatic acid" (this is an (!) archaic name for the rather more recognizable "hydrochloric acid") with sodium hypochlorite (aka "bleach"), you will produce four things:
1. heat
2. sodium chloride (aka "table salt")
3. chlorine gas
4. water

This, by the way, IS BAD, as chlorine gas is BAD FOR YOU.

This is called an "acid-base" reaction and they are very common. Acid-base reactions all work the same way: the cations trade places. This results (always) in the production of a salt and the production of water. Heat also always occurs. Sometimes (as with this reaction) there is a further reaction of the products.
The final reaction looks like this:
HCl + NaOCl -> NaCl (solid) + HOCl + heat
HOCl + HCl -> H2O + Cl + Cl
Cl + Cl -> Cl2 (gas)

So, congratulations, person-who-mixed-acid-and-bleach. You just proved a fundamental concept of chemistry and gave one of my friends a rough day and freaked out a lot of kids and their parents.


Side rant: "sodium hypochloride" is a nonsense phrase. It means nothing. Sodium hypochlorite, however, is the chemical name for bleach.