Sodium Chlorate - Alternative to Sodium Chlorite to produce ClO2 ?

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This is a rather technical subject directed at researchers with a fairly high

level of technical expertise, and I am also seeking opinions in specialist

chemistry forums.

The question concerns the possibility of using sodium chlorate as an alternative

generation medium for chlorine dioxide in the MMS application. The point being

to make the MMS concept even more widely available, even cheaper, and able to be

produced almost anywhere in the world with the simplest of equipment, just

common salt, a 12V power source and a glass jar.

I have seen instructions on the net (probably in error I now feel) which purport

to describe a method of producing sodium chlorite by the electrolysis of sodium

chloride (common salt) solution see here :-

http://www.ehow.com/how_5188671_make-sodium-chlorite.html

However other information on the net, and a reply in specialist chemistry forums

tells me the principle product of this process is sodium chlorate, not chlorite.

I have constructed the processing cell described above and after allowing the

cell to run for several days on a 12V DC supply drawing about 200mA with about

400mg of NaCl dissolved in 1 litre of water, the gassing at the carbon

electrodes ceased. It produced a solution which has obviously some free chlorine

or chlorine dioxide being released from the slight smell of chlorine.

Although the resultant electrolyte is mainly sodium chlorate, not chlorite,

although there may be some chlorite as a minority by product of the electrolysis

(I am trying to find this out from chemists) reacting a few drops of the

electrolyte with 10% citric acid solution gives a noticeable smell of chlorine,

possibly also chlorine dioxide, which I believe smells the same, although I

appreciate it is very different chemically from chlorine.

Sodium chlorate is used in industrial process to produce chlorine dioxide by

reduction with a strong acid, (hydrochloric acid) and the reaction with citric

acid appears to also do the job. However my chemistry is not good enough to be

sure what is happening. Maybe only chlorine is being produced.

Has any member of the group experimented along similar lines to use sodium

chlorate instead of sodium chlorite in the MMS application? If so could you

please post your experience and results, or if there are any members with

sufficient chemistry expertise could they please comment on the questions posed.

There are a number of US patents (search the patent database for Electrolysed

Saline) for various methods of electrolysing dilute NaCl solutions, some of

which claim spectacular therapeutic applications for the resultant electrolyte

in disinfection of wounds and treatment of diabetic ulcers. It is probable that

chlorine dioxide is the active agent, which suggests that some variations of the

electrolytic process that produces mainly sodium chlorate also generates some

chlorine dioxide.

While sodium chlorite(MMS) is fairly easily available, it is not so easily

available or cheap as common salt, which can be very easily electrolysed to

sodium chlorate. If chlorine dioxide can be produced from the chlorate in a

similar manner to the MMS(chlorite) process in vivo the availability of the

process would be even more globally universal.

If this works then equivalent " MMS " could be made anywhere from common salt, and

not even sodium chlorite would be needed as a basic material. The implications

of that would be obvious to anyone who has an understanding of the potential

uses of MMS.

I am not great at chemistry, actually an engineer, but please don't hold back

with the reaction equations or explanations, I'll try to follow along.