The goal of this experiment was to make a soap or detergent that had all of these qualities: has to be soluble in water, make a significant amount of bubbles, effectively clean, and the pH of the waste has to be easy to neutralize. The first week, we synthesized the soaps and detergents. Unfortunately, we did not record our observations or how long it took us to make each soap and detergent. However, what happened in the experiment was that we obtained 10 mL of each oil and 10 g of fat, and poured it into a 250-mL beaker. We then added 15 mL of 6M NaOH and 1 mL of glycerol while constantly stirring the solution. Afterwards, we added heat to each solution until it became a paste, and then we let the solution cool and added 50 mL of NaCl and ice while stirring the solution. Lastly, we filtered the soap, and we let the soap air dry for a week. During the second week, we performed several tests on the soaps and detergents to see which soap or detergent met most of these requirements: the bubble test, the clean test, and the titration test. The bubble test showed that olive oil soap had the highest level of bubbles, however the solution was filled with yellow contaminants (Table 1). Detergent 1 had the second highest level of bubbles. However, the water was cloudy, and the detergent didn’t dissolve completely. Vegetable oil had the third highest level of bubbles, but it was the cleanest. Detergent 2 had the second lowest level of bubbles; the bubbles were small and dense, and the water was murky. Animal fat didn’t even dissolve in the water, therefore, it had the lowest level of bubbles. Therefore, vegetable oil had the best result for the bubble test. The second test which tested how well the soaps cleaned surfaces indicated that the vegetable oil soap was the best cleaner, but there wasn’t much lathering (Table 2). Both olive oil and detergent 1 mildly cleaned the surface and there was some lathering. Even though olive oil kind of cleaned the surface, there were still some things floating in the solution when we were trying to clean the evaporating dish. Detergent 2 did not lather at all, and it did not really clean the evaporating dish. It basically just rinsed the evaporating dish. Lastly, since animal fat did not even dissolve in water, it did not lather or clean the surface. The titration test showed that the wastewater’s pH from the olive oil soap was the easiest to neutralize (Table 3). All of the wastewaters’ pH from the soaps were pretty close, but olive oil’s was closer to 7 (Table 3). Some of our errors could have affected the accuracy of our results. For instance, while synthesizing detergent 1, we actually put ice in the solution instead of putting it in an ice bath. We adjusted the temperature while the vegetable and olive oil soaps were heating, so that may have affected our results a little bit. Our olive oil soap was more of a liquid than it should have been after we filtered it using suction filtration. We couldn’t test the pH of detergent 2’s wastewater because while we were cleaning up, all of the solution in the test tube spilled in a drawer, and we did not have time to make another detergent. Our titrations were not accurate, as seen in graphs 1 through 4, because the device would sometimes not recognize the drops that were already in the solution. The pH would also quickly jump. For instance, the pH of the solution would be close to 8 and we added one more drop and the pH would drop to 4. Lastly, mold was forming in the wastewater of the vegetable oil soap.
According to Britannica, soaps that are made of vegetable oil doesn’t really lather in cold water, but it lathers in warm water, and it cleans well. This supports our results because we used cold water to test its cleaning ability, which is why it didn’t lather as much. If you used the olive oil to make the soap, they would become sour and “discolored” (Britannica). These findings support our evidence that vegetable oil would be the best option to make soap.
In conclusion, based on the fact that it was the best soap in almost all of the tests, except for the titration test, vegetable oil is the best ingredient to use for environmentally safe soap that effectively cleans every surface. Unfortunately, we did not get to perform the experiment for week 3. Therefore, we did not have any results for week 3 due to lack of time.