Soaps in Daily Life.

Soaps have been used for thousands of years as part of religious ceremonies and daily life. Derived from fatty acids or triglycerides (fats or oils) into their alkali derivatives through a process called saponification, soaps are important for healthcare professionals in preventing the spread of disease. Partly due to their alkaline nature, soaps are limited by their irritancy to the skin and their tendency to form insoluble and inactive salts when combined with either hard water or sea water. Therefore, soap alternatives or synthetic detergents have been developed. Detergents are classified into four groups: anionic, cationic, amphoteric, and non-ionic. These four groups are based on the hydrophilic qualities and surfactants they possess. Each group has characteristics that pertain to its main uses, irritancy, and toxicity. Understanding soaps and detergents may assist clinicians in making intelligent choices when using these agents on their patients as either skin cleansers or wound cleansers. Understanding the characteristics of soaps and detergents is especially important when dealing with at-risk patients such as the elderly. Soaps Soaps are cleaning agents that are usually made by reacting alkali (e.g., sodium hydroxide) with naturally occurring fat or fatty acids. The reaction produces sodium salts of these fatty acids, which improve the cleaning process by making water better able to lift away greasy stains from skin, hair, clothes, and just about anything else. As a substance that has helped clean bodies as well as possessions, soap has been remarkably useful.  Anionic Surfactant An anionic surfactant is a macromolecule, usually in the sulfonate or sulfate group of chemicals such as sodium laureth sulfate, that acts as an active surface agent to lower the surface tension of liquids. This allows them to bind to impurities and particles that are suspended in the liquid, which makes them effective cleaning agents in water. In small concentrations, they can also cause the foaming of compounds in water by creating large numbers of small bubbles of gas, and this makes them effective in cosmetics such as shampoo, toothpaste, and in fire-suppressing agents. Basic soap used to clean the human body is also a type of surfactant or detergent made from natural fatty acids of plant or animal origin. The difference with an anionic surfactant is that it is largely a synthetic chemical, and it has been designed to act not only as a surfactant that binds to oils and particulates in water, but also as a denaturing chemical for proteins. Since anionicsurfactants break down proteins attached to clothing in water, they are not recommended for ordinary soap use, as human skin is also a type of protein. Chemistry of Soap The basic structure of all soaps is essentially the same, consisting of a long hydrophobic (water-fearing) hydrocarbon "tail" and a hydrophilic (waterloving) anionic "head": CH 3 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 CH 2 COO − or CH 3 (CH 2 ) n COO − The length of the hydrocarbon chain ("n") varies with the type of fat or oil but is usually quite long. The anionic charge on the carboxylate head is usually balanced by either a positively charged potassium (K + ) or sodium (Na + ) cation. In making soap, triglycerides in fat or oils are heated in the presence of a strong alkali base such as sodium hydroxide, producing three molecules of soap for every molecule of glycerol. This process is called saponification. Like synthetic detergents, soaps are "surface active" substances ( surfactants ) and as such make water better at cleaning surfaces. Water, although a good general solvent, is unfortunately also a substance with a very high surface tension. Because of this, water molecules generally prefer to stay together rather than to wet other surfaces. Surfactants work by reducing the surface tension of water, allowing the water molecules to better wet the surface and thus increase water's ability to dissolve dirty, oily stains. In studying how soap works, it is useful to consider a general rule of nature: "like dissolves like." The nonpolar hydrophobic tails of soap are lipophilic ("oil-loving") and so will embed into the grease and oils that help dirt and stains adhere to surfaces. The hydrophilic heads, however, remain surrounded by the water molecules to which they are attracted. As more and more soap molecules embed into a greasy stain, they eventually surround and isolate little particles of the grease and form structures called micelles that are lifted into solution. In a micelle, the tails of the soap molecules are oriented toward and into the grease, while the heads face outward into the water, resulting in an emulsion of soapy grease particles suspended in the water. With agitation, the micelles are dispersed into the water and removed from the previously dirty surface. In essence, soap molecules partially dissolve the greasy stain to form the emulsion that is kept suspended in water until it can be rinsed away. As good as soaps are, they are not perfect. For example, they do not work well in hard water containing calcium and magnesium ions, because the calcium and magnesium salts of soap are insoluble; they tend to bind to the calcium and magnesium ions, eventually precipitating and falling out of solution. In doing so, soaps actually dirty the surfaces they were designed to clean. Thus soaps have been largely replaced in modern cleaning solutions by synthetic detergents that have a sulfonate (R-SO 3 − ) group instead of the carboxylate head (R-COO − ). Sulfonate detergents tend not to precipitate with calcium or magnesium ions and are generally more soluble in water. Soap in cleaning Soap is an excellent cleanser because of its ability to act as an emulsifying agent. An emulsifier is capable of dispersing one liquid into another immiscible liquid. This means that while oil (which attracts dirt) doesn't naturally mix with water, soap can suspend oil/dirt in such a way that it can be removed. The organic part of a natural soap is a negatively-charged, polar molecule. Its hydrophilic (water-loving) carboxylate group (-CO2) interacts with water molecules via ion-dipole interactions and hydrogen bonding. The hydrophobic (water-fearing) part of a soap molecule, its long, nonpolar hydrocarbon chain, does not interact with water molecules. The hydrocarbon chains are attracted to each other by dispersion forces and cluster together, forming structures called micelles. In these micelles, the carboxylate groups form a negatively-charged spherical surface, with the hydrocarbon chains inside the sphere. Because they are negatively charged, soap micelles repel each other and remain dispersed in water. Grease and oil are nonpolar and insoluble in water. When soap and soiling oils are mixed, the nonpolar hydrocarbon portion of the micelles break up the nonpolar oil molecules. A different type of micelle then forms, with nonpolar soiling molecules in the center. Thus, grease and oil and the 'dirt' attached to them are caught inside the micelle and can be rinsed away.