Hypochlorous acid molecular structure

During the long Antarctic night, appreciable amounts of molecular chlorine, Cl, and hypochlorous acid, HOCl, accumulate within the polar vortex. When the sun returns during the spring (in September in Antarctica), ultraviolet radiation decomposes the accumulated molecular chlorine and hypochlorous acid to produce atomic chlorine. Cl. Atomic chlorine is a free radical. Free radicals are atoms or molecules that contain an unpaired or free electron. The Lewis structures of free radicals contain an odd number of electrons. The unpaired electron in free radicals makes them very reactive. The free radical Cl produced from the decomposition of CI2 and HOCl catalyzes the destruction of ozone as represented by the reaction ... 

Dichlorine oxide, CI2O, is best prepared on a laboratory scale by reacting chlorine with mercury oxide (equation 94). On an industrial scale, it can be prepared by reacting chlorine with moist carbonate (equation 95). This oxide is readily soluble in water to form hypochlorous acid (equation 96). Its salts, the hypochlorites, are quite stable and are used in the textile industries and to bleach wood pulp. The low-temperature crystal structme of CI2O reveals an essentially molecular structure [d(O-Cl) = 1.7092(4) A] with weak secondary interactions [d(0- Cl) = 2.7986(4) A] affording a distorted tetrahedral coordination around the O atom. ... 

Myeloperoxidase is the principal heme protein of the mammalian neutrophil functioning in the phagocytic process through its capacity at acid pH to peroxidize chloride ions to hypochlorous acid. Investigations of the structure of myeloperoxidase from various species have shown it to be a two-heme protein with a molecular weight in the region 135,000-150,000 (Agner, 1958, 1970 Harrison and Schultz, 1976 Harrison et al, 1977). 

---