The story of Soap
How soap originated?
Its believed that soap originated from a hill in Tyber riverside, called Saphoe. When organisms were dead and decayed, the fats inside their body flowed into the river. Romans believed this fats were good to remove stains from clothes. But there is no solid proof for the existence of a hill named Saphoe. But archaelogists found out some clues for the existence of soap-like things from what was Ancient Babilonia.
Soaps are molecules in which the two ends have differing properties, one dissolves in water, while the other dissolves in hydrocarbons. Or soaps are substances in nature, which are formed by the interlinking of straight chain carboxylic acid groups. (-COOH). Eg. Palmitic Acid C15-H31-COOH. Soaps contain Sodium or Pottasium elements. Inside water, these molecules have a unique orientation that keeps the hydrocarbon protion out of the water. This is achived by forming clusters of molecules in which the hydrophobic tails are in the interio of the clister/ This formation is called micelle. Soap in the form of a micelle is able to clean, since the oily firl will be collected in solution as a colloid and will not come together to precipitate ecause of ion-ion repulsion. Thus, the dirt suspended in the micelles is also easily rinsed away. The soap micelles are large enough to scatter light. Hence a soap solution appears cloudy. Soaps are of two types : Soft and Hard.
Soft soap : Soft soap are the soaps used toilets, and for bathing purposes.
Hard soap : Hard soaps are the soaps which are not that good for skin, and they are used for cleaning clothes.
How to make a soap?
Soap creation is a simple procedure. First lets make hard soap.
Requirements
- 100 g Oil
- 17.5 g Caustic Soda (NaOH – Sodium Hydroxide)
Procedure
Dissolve 17.5 g Caustic Coda in 40 ml Water slowly. We can observe that this is an exothermic process.
Take 100 g Oil in a flat steel can. Pour caustic soda into the can while mixing the oil. While the mixture gets coagulated,transfer this mixture into a new containers of shape that you'd like the soap to have. After 8-10 hours, your soap will be ready!
What is glycerin soap?
The quality of soap is determined by various factors. They include :
- Hardness of the soap
- Solubility
- Soft soap
- pH value
- Ability to from lather
- Colour
- Odour
Glyecerin soaps are of high quality. These soaps are used to protect our skin from losing softness in humid conditions. Glyecerin play a vital role, in beauty packages and kids' soaps.
As Glycerin is an after product of soap creation, it is likely that soaps contain glyerin in them.
Those soaps which are created from the filtering of alcohol and glyercerin mixture, are glyerin soaps. They are good for protection of our skin.
Dirt removal – The backstage view
Normally Oils and Fats show less affinity towards water. Dirts are also just like the same. Chemically, like dissolves like. Means mixtures, dissolve in same kind of solutions. When we dip our dirty clothes in water, the dirt is not having any direct contact with water. This is due to the differences in surface tensions between two states of matter. And here is where soaps come in, they just reduce the force of surface tension, and soaps are just built for that.
The longer organic part is attracted towards dirt having similar properties. But when dirt's surface is filled with negative charge, they will repel each other. This is what happens when we soap our dresses in water. And to just complete the process, human's apply muscular force to throw away this already separated particles. And this is how dirt is removed.
