I've read the MSDS's for both Sodium Hydroxide, and Sodium Hypochlorite/Bleach, but neither have provided me with enough direction - and I need it, there is peoples health & safety at risk due to it. I don't know what will react with it, so have not been able to neutralise it very well.

No, this is not a meth synthesis gone wrong. I got overzealous with the mould killer when I went into the bathroom and saw black mould creeping through the plasterwork. Overcome by distraction I forgot to ventilate the area, and wipe down the sprayed surfaces with warm water. 45 minutes later, my house smells like an overtreated indoor heated pool and people are complaining of headaches, nausea, and dizzyness. I flashed back to my training and instigated a chemical evacuation procedure as best I could, but I don't know any more about the compounds than average Jack.

Could you guys help me make this place safe again. We gotta sleep soon, and I don't want people developing respiratory bullshit due to my carelessness. Careless stupidity in hindsight.

Thanks.

P.S. The mould killer is 49 g/L Sodium Hypochlorite, and 27 g/L Sodium Hydroxide. Alkaline salts = 1.2 grams a litre.

If the entire house reeks of chlorine, open all the windows and doors for an hour or two. If the NaClO is still giving off chlorine, open the bathroom window and close the door, if you can still smell the chlorine, likeliness is that it isn't at a dangerous concentration.

You can smell chlorine at about 1ppm, but it takes up to about 30ppm before you start to get negative effects. If its irritating your eyes, its probably too high, but until its literally making your eyes sting, I believe it to be at a fairly safe level.

Also chlorine is fairly dense, so if you can, place a fan on the floor to move any patches where chlorine has settled and exists in a higher concentration. In fact, turning on any fans you can is probably a good idea.

I think all you can really do is to just ventilate your house as well as you can and try to airlock off any sources. As I said, most likely you are fine, the place just stinks; you'd definitely know about it if it was at a high enough concentration to start respiratory irritating, you'll start hacking and coughing madly. If you really are paranoid about the concentrations, just go to a hotel for the night, but its extremely unlikely you've produced enough chlorine to be damaging.

Also, assuming you used the entire litre of mould killer, it could have liberated 23.3g of Cl
Assuming your house is ~2,500 square feet and 20 feet high, thats a volume of 50,000 ft2
That's 0.000466g of Cl per cubic foot of air.
Assuming a weight of 36.61g of air per foot, that's 1.27 x 10^(-5)% Cl in your air
Or 12ppm Cl, under half of the minimum amount of Cl required to cause any damage.

Admittedly its unlikely the gas will have diffused equally around the house, but I highly doubt you used the entire litre, nor do I suspect that all of the Cl will be evolved and none will be scrubbed up by the NaOH solution.

Try these links:


http://www.chemistryquestion.com/English/Questions/ChemistryInDailyLife/3c_bleach_cleaner.html


http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00046.htm