Which Window Cleaner Best Removes Various Substances?

Researched by Lacey
1999-2000 

PURPOSE 

HYPOTHESIS 

EXPERIMENT DESIGN 

MATERIALS 

PROCEDURES 

RESULTS 

CONCLUSION 

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RESEARCH REPORT 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

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About the Author

 Soap and detergent are both cleaning products.  People clean their homes for health and beauty reasons. Clean windows let in more light and are more pleasant to look at.  Most window cleaners contain either soap or detergent.
The Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary’s definition of soap is: "a cleansing agent made by action of alkali on fat or fatty acids and consisting essentially of sodium or potassium salts of such acids". Their definition for detergent is" that cleanses: cleansing, a cleansing agent".
 

Fats or oils boiling with alkali make soap. There are two methods to make soap, the kettle method and continuous processing.
 In the kettle method, large kettles measuring anywhere from 15 to 30 feet in diameter and 45 to 60 feet in height are used. Ten train carloads of soap can be made from one batch of ingredients that fills one kettle. Fats, oils, and sodium hydroxide are piped into the kettle. To heat the mixture to a quick boil, steam pipes are used.  The heat is turned off and tons of salt solution is added.  This process occurs after a week. Then it is reheated and separates into layers on it’s own. The two layers are called neat soap and nigre, neat soap is the top layer and nigre is the bottom layer.  Neat soap holds about 70% soap and nigre holds about 15 to 40% soap, glycerin, and left over fats, oils, and coloring matter. The neat soap is taken from the kettle and put in a huge mixing machine. This is called the crutcher. The crutcher mixes in other ingredients like perfumes, water softeners, colors and germicides. A germicide is a substance that kills harmful organisms, for instance bacteria. Various forms of soap are made from the crutcher. These include soap bars, soap flakes, and powdered soap. 
The type of soap depends on the raw ingredients put in the kettle. Animal and vegetable fats are common mixtures. Hard soaps that do not lather in cold water are produced from animal fats, such as grease and tallow. Vegetable oils create soaps that feel greasy but lather in cold water. Potassium hydroxide makes soft soaps like shaving creams. 
In the 1930’s continuous processing was developed. Time and space were saved, when compared to the kettle method. It also makes it easier to recover the glycerin by-product. There are different methods of continuous processing; for instance, one method splits the fats in a wide, steel (stainless) tube that is 26 m high. The fats are then pumped downward toward the bottom, and then distilled water flows in near the top. Pressure is then added to the mixture and the temperature then rises to 260 degrees Celsius. The fats keep rising until the water is met.  The water separates the fatty acids and the glycerin. These are then drawn off through the separate openings. The fatty acids go on to the blenders where sodium hydroxide is mixed in to make soap. Sharples is another method used. That is where hot fats and oils along with hot sodium hydroxide are mixed in a chamber. A centrifuge then separates the soap and other by-products. 

When soap is used, it works by dissolving it’s molecules’ "tail" in the dirt or grease. When a whole bunch of molecules have dissolved their tail in the grease, the water comes and washes it away, along with the wash water. 

Around AD 600, Italy made the first crude soaps. The ingredients were fats or oils mixed with potassium carbonate (potash). The country of Spain became known for its castile soaps. These soaps base was olive oil. This was around AD 700. France then became the major soap maker of the world for the next several hundred years. The French pioneered the use of coloring agents and perfumes. In colonial America and the 1800’s, all fats and greases were saved. People boiled them together with lye that was made from wood ashes. This produced a strong yellow soap. In the current day, soap industries are always developing new soap products so as to keep up with the buyer’s needs. The average American uses 25 pounds of soap a year, or 11kg.
 

A detergent is an organic chemical substance generally made of carbon, oxygen, sulfur, and hydrogen compounds. This mixed with water cleanses soiled materials. Soap has a different chemical setup than detergent, but is still in the detergent family because it is a substance that cleanses soiled materials. Household detergents are laundry and dishwashing. They come in three different forms, powder, flakes, and liquid. 
 

Detergents contain a basic cleaning agent called a surfactant. It is also called a surface-active agent. Surfactants are molecules that implant themselves in the dirt and pry it away from the material. They then surround the material and water then rinses them away. Surfactants lower water’s surface tension, which increases it’s wetting ability. Surface tension is the force that keeps water molecules together. They can also help detergent make lather and suds. Contrary to popular belief, the cleaning ability of detergents has very little to do with lather and suds. Bleaches, fabric brightners, and stabilizers are of agents most detergents contain besides surfactants. There is also an agent that keeps dirt that has already been removed from coming back. That agent is called antiredeposition.

A German scientist, Fritz Gunther, developed the first detergent. This happened in 1916. In 1933, the United States was introduced to household detergents. During World War II (1939-1945), detergents came into use for the first time, because ingredients for soap were scarce. In the early 1960’s, people found out the detergents that were being flushed into sewers were not biodegrading (breaking up into parts). 

Ammonia is a gas that is a mix of nitrogen and hydrogen. Its chemical formula is NH3. This has a strong odor.

By distilling coal into coke and coal gas, ammonia can be made. Another strategy to make ammonia is by mixing hydrogen and nitrogen with catalyst under pressure at a warm temperature.
 

Distillation is the process used to separate two kinds of matter, liquids from solids or liquids from liquids. It can also be a method to purify water. Because liquids boil at different temperatures, this method works. It is heated and vaporized. Then, it is returned to a liquid form because it had risen to the top of the apparatus and was condensed. 
 

There are three types of distillation, simple distillation, fractional distillation, and destructive distillation. 
Simple distillation is used to get one substance to dissolve another substance from another solution. The solution is then boiled and the steam (vapor) that changes form and are made up of pure solvent. Fractional distillation is used to separate each liquid from a mixture.

Soap, detergent, and ammonia are all cleaning agents. They are used to cleanse soiled areas. There are a lot of ways to make these various agents. Soap and detergent are two very different types of cleansers and are used for different purposes but they cleanse soiled areas the same way. They are also in the same family because of this.