How to determine the product from my attempt of HOCl synthesis This is a follow up to this question. Here is my short procedure:

start with 200mL distilled water
add 7mL of 8.25% sodium hypochlorite (.11M) to the solution. The resulting solution should be 3.7*10$^{-3}$M NaOCl
add bromocresol green indicator.
add acetic acid dropwise, titrate until the solution hits a green color (pH~5).

I think at this point, the solution should contain HOCl and a small amount of dissolved sodium acetate.
$$NaOCl + CH_3COOH \rightarrow HOCl + CH_3COONa$$
I took a pH test with litmus paper and it shows between 5-6. I took a free chlorine test to determine the concentration of HOCl, and it resulted in ~1000ppm, which was what I was aiming for. The chlorine concentration stayed comfortably within its max solubility in water. I used an NaCl meter to determine the concentration in the solution and it returned 0. However, I tested for salts with silver nitrate and it precipitated both white and dark brown/black.
White precipitate indicates presence of chlorine, and dark brown precipitate indicates presence of OH. How did I get AgOH in an acidic solution? Is it simply that the silver rips apart the HOCl to form AgCl and AgOH?
My boss is concerned that I have made dilute hydrochloric acid, not hypochlorous acid. How can I prove that the solution is one product or the other?
Ryan, sorry your approach to generate the desired compound is not the best one. This post also shows the problems with the concept of an &quot;accepted&quot; answer on StackExchange. The answer is also wrong and misleading. Please consult your academic supervisor to help you do a proper literature search. I am not sure why are you doing all this, you did not explain in your two posts. First of all, there is nothing such as pure 8% NaOCl soln. This bleach is a mixture sodium hydroxide and NaOCl. What you are apparently titrating is the free alkali with acetic acid (which you should not be doing). Simultaneously, the hypochlorite ion is decomposing into other products.
The proper place to do inorganic synthesis research is the library, not Q&amp;A site. A good reference is Kirk Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology to look up bleach and its properties. Any good library must have it.
In your first question you linked a paper &quot;Hypochlorous Acid as a Potential Wound Care Agent&quot; in the Journal of Burns and Wounds. This journal has a zero impact factor which means this is of dubious quality. There was a reason to avoid organic acid such as acetic acid in that paper. Have you read about disinfection by-products in water? Search this topic this too, because disinfection byproducts can be cancer-causing.