Stainless steel dinnerware bleach pitting (personal anecdote)

Domestic illustration of the chloride + oxygen pitting mechanism on stainless. Mother-in-law sterilized dinnerware in Clorox overnight.

I told you that stainless steel needs chlorides to help break down that passive layer. My mother-in-law lived with us for seventeen years, and it was kind of her job every night to clean the dishes. One time she didn't have enough to fill up the dishwasher, so she decided to take our stainless steel dinnerware and put it in some Clorox overnight to sterilize it. This is after — used to bug me — she would turn on the hot water in the kitchen sink after dinner, and it would just run for the next two hours. But anyway, this time she decided to put in Clorox, and the next morning of course everything was pitted. I got to buy some brand new dinnerware.

Tom's mother soaked dinnerware in dilute bleach overnight; oxygenated chloride pitted the stainless in 24 hours. Used as a domestic-scale demonstration of the Manwich mechanism.

My mother lived with us for seventeen years until she passed away. One night she didn't have many things to wash, so she decided to put the stainless steel dinnerware in a little bit of water and some bleach to sanitize it rather than running the dishwasher. Well, overnight, an oxygenated chloride environment will pit stainless steel in twenty-four hours. So we had this big pit in the dinnerware. It's amazing how fast it happens.