What is the best disinfectant to use on bacteria?

I'm doing a project on agar and how bacteria forms on it for a science fair, and its pretty much just finding places with bacteria, taking some bacteria with a q-tip and putting it on the agar to grow. But what i want to know is what is the best disinfectant or or product to clean the bacteria. Keep it simple please.

What is the best disinfectant to use on bacteria?
I assume that when you say "clean the bacteria" you mean how do you kill the bacteria, right?





A couple of things work on almost all living cells: common household bleach kills pretty much everything alive, as does ammonia (DO NOT MIX bleach and ammonia -- it creates a seriously toxic gas).
Reply:bleach, ammonia, ethanol, Lysol (use only one)
Reply:Iodine is a disinfectant used for cleaning wounds. It has the advantage of being relatively harmless and long-acting.





Bleach is used in many household cleaning. Cheap but harmful in contact with human skin.





70% alcohol is used for a variety of purposes to disinfect skin, utensils and surfaces. Cheap but short-acting, and tends to dehydrate the skin with frequent contact.





Chlorhexidine is used in many anti-bacterial hand washes and often used to scrub skin surfaces before surgery. it's long-acting and expensive, and works better on gram-positive bacteria.





Formaldehyde is often used as a fumigant to disinfect rooms or some other enclosed space. It kills everything, but is extremely harmful when inhaled or contacted with skin.





Hot water is often used as a disinfectant in restaurants and butcher shops to clean knives and other utensils. Hot water has the advantage of being just water, therefore could be ingested without the food tasting weird or making people sick.





Calcium oxide, or quicklime, is still used sometimes on pig farms because it is cheap.





Antibiotics are not usually considered disinfectants, but some hospitals add them to the saline used during surgery to keep tissues hydrated. *Very* expensive compared to all the others mentioned above, but they have the distinct advantage of being able to be injected into the human body without too much adverse effects.





Other ways of disinfecting includes autoclaving (121C 30min), UV rays, and irradiation.