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The Chemistry of Soap
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Figure 2: Tryglyceride diagram These weak acids consist of two parts which is basically made up of a long straight chain of carbon atoms, each paired with two hydrogen atoms: 1. A carboxylic acid group with one hydrogen atom, two oxygen atoms, and one carbon atom and 2. a hydrocarbon chain attached to the carboxylic acid group. (Figure 3)
Figure 3: Formation of a fatty acid By reacting the fats or oils with alkali, the fatty acid is attained by the splits of the fats or oils into two major parts, fatty acid and glycerin. Afterwards, the sodium or potassium ions of the alkali joins with the fatty acid and the result of the combination is then going to be either potassium or sodium salt of the fatty acid, therefore giving us soap.
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Here are the steps of producing soap. After the fats and oils are heated by it's reaction with hot water in a vat and have been broken up into fatty acids and glycerol, the fatty acids will then react with an alkali to produce the soap, while the glycerol is removed from the soap as it gets dissolved by the brine added. Later, the soap which is insoluble in the salt solution rises to the surface as a curd and is ready to be manufactured into bars of soap, etc. and distributed for Arda inhabitants to then use.
Figure 4: Diagram of the formation of Soap Figure 4 is a diagram of the formation of soap along with it's byproducts of water and glycerine made by the combination of trigylceride and alkali. Now, the
actual chemistry of the cleansing action of soap is determined by it's
polar and non- polar structures. The non-polar structure is a long hydrocarbon
chain that is hydrophobic and the polar structure is the salt end of
the soap molecule, which is ionic and hydrophilic. Therefore, when soap
is added to water, the ionic- salt end of the molecule is attracted
to water and so dissolves into it.
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