LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Bromine: Water
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Bromine is the only liquid nonmetallic element at room temperature and one of only six elements on the periodic table that are liquid at or close to room temperature. The pure chemical element has the physical form of a diatomic molecule, Br2. It is a dense, mobile, reddish-brown liquid, that evaporates easily at standard temperature and pressures to give a red vapor (its color resembles nitrogen dioxide) that has a strong disagreeable odor resembling that of chlorine. Bromine is a halogen, and is less reactive than chlorine and more reactive than iodine. Bromine is slightly soluble in water, and highly soluble in carbon disulfide, aliphatic alcohols (such as methanol), and acetic acid. It bonds easily with many elements and has a strong bleaching action.
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Bromine is a popular pool and spa sanitizer often used instead of chlorine. Bromine has some distinct differences from chlorine. One advantage is that bromine works better for spas / hot tubs (with hotter water and lower water volume) than chlorine does. On the minus side, bromine is sensitive to sunlight, deteriorating rapidly when exposed to the sun. It can ... be more expensive than chlorine. For these reasons, bromine is less popular than chlorine for use in outdoor pools.
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Bromine compounds have a variety of uses. Methyl bromide (CH3Br) is a common agricultural soil fumigant; other bromohalocarbon compounds have been used as refrigerants and fire suppressants. Inorganic bromides are important components of photographic emulsions. Bromine reacts with liquid water to produce hypobromite ion (BrO−), a powerful bleaching agent. There are ... many dyes and pharmaceutical agents that contain bromine.
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Bromine tablets are typically 1-bromo-3-chloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin. When added to water they hydrolyze to become hypobromous acid. With bromine tablets a separate oxidizer is not necessary to make hypobromous acid, it is already an ingredient in the tablets. When the hypobromous acid reacts with a contaminant and is reduced, it becomes a bromide ion. You then get a build up of bromide ions in the water. After a while, you could just start adding an oxidizer to reactivate the bromide ions to hypobromous acid, but most people don't, they just add more bromine tabs.
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Bromine is available commercially so it is not normally necessary to make it in the laboratory. Bromine ... occurs in seawater as the sodium salt but in much smaller quantities than chloride. It is recovered commercially through the treatment of seawater with chlorine gas and flushing through with air. In this treatment, bromide is oxidized to bromine by the chlorine gas. The principle of oxidation of bromide to bromine is shown by the addition of a little chlorine water to aqueous solutions of bromide. These become brown as elemental bromine forms.
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Bromine is present in abnormally high concentrations in salt brines of the Smackover Formation (Jurassic) in south-central Arkansas. The original analyses that led to the development of Arkansas' bromine industry were performed by the Arkansas Geological Commission chemist on brines from 4 oil fields developed in the Smackover Formation. The analyses showed bromine concentrations ranging from 4,000 to 4,600 parts per million, or about 70 times the bromine concentration of normal ocean water. Between 1.5 to 1.8 pounds of bromine are recovered from every barrel of brine processed. U. S. Bureau of Mines data for 1993 show that 35 percent of Arkansas' non-fuels mineral value was due to bromine recovery. The first commercial recovery of bromine in Arkansas was from Union County in 1957, and production has been continuous ever since.
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