If you are one of those who have peed in a pool, this is for you: besides being a disgusting habit, urine interacts with chlorine and creates that unique pool smell. It is the fruit of this interaction that causes your eyes to sting after you practice water sports or have fun in a swimming pool.

Swimming pools are chemically treated to eliminate harmful microorganisms to our health. However, these chemicals, especially chlorine, create reactions with urea and form the nitrogen trichloride, known as trichloramine, which leaves in the pool that characteristic smell that everyone knows.

Trichloramine also makes our eyes sting and redden. So now you know: if you get out of a pool with eye irritation, it's because you pee in it. But this should not be big news, right? According to researchers at the American Chemical Society, there are between 30 and 80 milliliters of urine per person in each pool. Ew!

Urea reacts with chlorine to form trichloramine, which causes eye irritation and leaves the pool with its characteristic smell

* Posted on 8/18/2016