Cresol disinfectant
What replaced carbolic in the household, and the reason a particular smell still means clean. Detectable at 0.0006 ppm — far below the level at which it is dangerous.
Precautions
- Wear gloves
- Wear eye protection
- Ventilate the area
- Never mix with other cleaning products
- Keep away from children and pets
In detail
The disinfectant fluids that followed carbolic into British and American homes were built on cresols, coal-tar relatives of phenol, and they are the reason a generation associated one specific smell with hygiene. The regulator's sheet contains the number that explains the association: the odour threshold for cresols is 0.0006 parts per million. That is the lowest figure in any fact sheet read across two sprints of this work, and it inverts the usual relationship — the smell is detectable at a concentration far below the one at which the substance is hazardous, so a house that smelled of disinfectant contained almost none of it. The hazard summary is blunt even by the standards of the series. Cresols are corrosive chemicals; contact can severely irritate and burn skin and eyes with possible eye damage; they pass through the skin; high exposure can cause collapse and death within minutes; they may cause a skin allergy after which very low future exposure causes itching and rash; and they may damage the liver and kidneys. CleaningHQ describes no domestic use for this substance.
Properties
- Chemical name
- Cresols, mixed isomers
- pH
- Mildly acidic
Why
- Cresol disinfectant is explained by Cleaning, disinfecting and sterilising
- Cresol disinfectant is explained by Emulsification
Barely soluble in water, so it was sold emulsified with soap. That is why it turns milky in the bucket.
Sources for this page
Sources
Right to Know Hazardous Substance Fact Sheet: Cresols, mixed isomers (RTK 0537)
New Jersey Department of Health, 2007 · Government or regulator
Relied on for: That cresols are corrosive, pass through the skin, that high exposure can cause collapse and death within minutes, that they may cause a skin allergy, and that the odour threshold is 0.0006 ppm. (states this directly)
Verification: a person has read the passage relied on.
Read on — The hazard summary and the reactivity list. Supports the claim as stated. Completes the historical disinfection record. The odour-threshold figure is what explains the cultural association between a particular smell and hygiene, which is a history question the catalogue can now answer with a number.
Last reviewed by a person on .