sanitation: chlorine, iodine, bromine?

[rtockst]

Hello all, I was thinking earlier it's interesting that we use chlorine and iodine to sanitize and they happen to be in the same group on the periodic table (this means they will have similar chemical characterisitics). So I thought, since bromine is also in this group, is there any kind of sanitizing agent that uses bromine? I think it's a valid thought, but one misunderstanding may be the chlorine part. Is it chloride ions that do the sanitizing or is it a compound which has chlorine in it? Because if it is directly chloride and iodide ions (or molecular chlorine or iodine) then why wouldn't there be a bromine sanitizer?

Someone please tell me the specifics of this because I know I'm missing something.

 

[Killer_Robot]

Bromine is used in some sanitizers and cleaning agents, though as far as I know nothing commonly used in brewing. Chlorine has the advantage of being powerful and plentiful, doing a lot at low concentrations and the disadvantage of causing off flavors; and iodine costs more to produce but has the advantages of being safer to work with, less likely to make off flavors, and having nutritional value in small quantities. I suspect though can't prove that for brewing purposes, bromine combines more of the disadvantages of the two rather than the advantages.