Questions tagged [surfactants]
Questions about compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid.
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Is it known for sure that bases feel slippery because of the production of soap/surfactant?
Discussion around the question Why does bleach feel slippery? has started me thinking about the saponification explanation for the slippery feeling of basic solutions.
According to Wikipedia:
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Why does soap reduce surface tension of water
One explanation I read is that soap's long non-polar end will seek the air at the interface between water and air, and that the ionic end will form ionic-dipole bonds with the water. In the process of ...
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How does NaCl (or any inorganic salt) increase surface tension?
Does the compound "prefer" to stay in the solution?
If yes, wouldn't the surface tension of the solution be equal to that of pure water, since only water is in the surface?
See: Does NaCl reduce the ...
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What is the difference between hand wash and body wash soap?
I do not like body wash always with strong favor. I like hand wash soap to wash my body. Are they difference at all?
Thanks for the comments, so that I add the following information
I am really sorry ...
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Is there such a thing as a "minimal soap" molecule?
Wikipedia's Soap gives sodium stearate as an example of soap, and apparently I've been eating it:
Sodium stearate is the sodium salt of stearic acid. This white solid is the most common soap. It is ...
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What is the opposite of a surfactant?
Surfactants decrease surface tension between two fluids. What do you call a substance that increases the surface tension between two fluids? How is this effect acheived?
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Why does shampoo lather much more the second time it is applied?
When I shampoo my dirty hair, the first time it does not lather very much. The second time it lathers a lot. Why is this?
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What is the purpose of froth in washing clothes?
I stay at a rented place and there is no washing machine. I, now, wash clothes in a bucket. When I add detergent, sometimes there is froth, sometimes there is not. I wonder if this had any impact on ...
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Quantifying soapiness; there's pH, pKa and pO2, is there a p_soap or p_surfactance?
Yes, $\mathrm{pH}$ is a concentration, $\mathrm{p}K_\mathrm{a}$ is a dissociation constant, and $\mathrm{pO_2}$ is a partial pressure. These are (roughly speaking) ways to indicate how much of a key ...
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Is there a type of detergent/surfactant that evaporates at STP?
Are there any type of detergent/surfactant chemicals that would be good for removing dirt and grease from fabric that also would evaporate from the clothes within, say, 24 hours leaving no residue?
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Why do surfactants lower the surface tension
Everybody knows that detergents, or generally amphiphilic substances, lower the surface tension. Of water, usually.
I wonder if that's true for any polar solvent (most likely), i.e. will the same ...
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