An oxidiz­ing agent is a substance that can oxidize other substances. Some oxidants are char­ac­ter­ized by the fact that oxygen is released to the other substance. For exam­ple, carbon reacts with the oxidant oxygen during combus­tion to form carbon diox­ide. In addi­tion to oxygen, hydro­gen perox­ide is a well-known, very potent oxidiz­ing agent. It there­fore acts as a strong bleach­ing and disin­fect­ing agent, as does peracetic acid. Halo­gens are also oxidiz­ing agents, one of the strongest being fluorine.