Description
Biocide is a chemical substance or microorganism which can deter, render harmless, or exert a controlling effect on any harmful organism by chemical or biological means. Biocide chemicals are commonly used in medicine, agriculture, forestry, and industry. Biocidal substances and products are also employed as anti-fouling agents or disinfectants under other circumstances: chlorine, for example, is used as a short-life biocide in industrial water treatment but as a disinfectant in swimming pools. Many biocides are synthetic, but a class of natural biocides, derived from e.g. bacteria and plants, includes brassica oleracea, brassica oleracea gemmifera, and clostridium botulinum bacteria.
A biocide can be:
- A pesticide: This includes fungicides, herbicides, insecticides, algicides, molluscicides, miticides and rodenticides.
Biocide chemicals can also refer to the destruction of life, a form of omnicide that affects every living thing, not just humans; one who wishes that everything in the entire world, or universe, face extinction, is labeled a ‘Biocidist’, or having ‘biocidal’ ideologies.
