“…For example, the most widely used disinfectants, which are free chlorine and the many combined chlorine compounds that liberate free chlorine in water such as the hydantoins and isocyanurates, have brief useful lifetimes in water, especially in sunlight, and can react with organic impurities to produce trihalomethanes, which have been linked to cancer in laboratory animals via oral ingestion (Brodtmann and Russo, 1979;Vogt and Regli, 1981;Cotruvo, 1982). Chlorine dioxide and ozone are other potent antimicrobial agents, but they also do not provide long-term residuals, and being strong oxidizing agents, they could react with certain organics in water to produce byproducts with unknown health risks when consumed (Vogt and Regli, 1981;Bull, 1980;Lin and Carlson, 1984;Olivieri et al, 1986;Bercz et al, 1982). Thus the goal in our laboratories for the past decade has been to develop a stable, new disinfectant for general-purpose use in water and on hard surfaces.…”