Science Fair

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ritaneedshelp
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:26 pm
Occupation: parent:26 years old
Project Question: Which table or chart should my son use for "which kind of soap removes more grease: hand soap, dish soap,shampoo"and what is the procedure?
Project Due Date: March 3,2014
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Science Fair

Post by ritaneedshelp »

Hi :D I am a mother of two sons. They are doing a science project and one of my sons needs help. Which means I gotta help him.I did alot of research but none of them are the answers I wanted.So I want to ask you guys what are the procedure of "which kind of soap removes more grease:hand soap,dish soap,or shampoo". I aslo wanna ask what kinf of table or chart should my son use?I really need your help so please help me!
rmarz
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Re: Science Fair

Post by rmarz »

ritaneedshelp - I'm not an expert on this by any stretch, but I know that there are great similarities between soap, detergents and shampoo formulations. Al have in common that they are based on a combination of fats and a strong alkali like lye (sodium or potassium hydroxide). You can research the actions of these soaps on the internet. On the two extremes, detergents have more aggressive surfactants and other chemicals to assist in dispersion of oil and grease, while shampoo products will tend to be less harsh, more balanced from a pH perspective, and contain other oils beneficial to hair makeup. From that little knowledge, I would say that on simple grease samples, the detergent might be the more aggressive product to use. I'm not familiar with the procedures suggested to conduct this experiment, so can't offer much more than this.

Rick Marz
ritaneedshelp
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Feb 28, 2014 4:26 pm
Occupation: parent:26 years old
Project Question: Which table or chart should my son use for "which kind of soap removes more grease: hand soap, dish soap,shampoo"and what is the procedure?
Project Due Date: March 3,2014
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: Science Fair

Post by ritaneedshelp »

Thanks alot but I that wasn't the answer that I wanted, But thanks for trying. :)
rmarz
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Re: Science Fair

Post by rmarz »

ritaneedshelp - Sorry I didn't get to the answer you were looking for. You said you have done a lot of research but didn't get the answers you wanted. My suggestion was that the most effective product to disperse grease would likely be a detergent, or liquid dish detergent, followed by hand soap, and finally, shampoo. I don't know what procedure your experiment suggested, whether a like amount of grease was tested with a certain amount of the soap to see if full emulsification resulted or using a grease stained fabric swatch was tested in each 'soap' mix and evaluated. Can you share a link to this experiment? Perhaps if you can share what you are trying to accomplish we can help more. As for a table or chart to represent your results, we first have to find out what you are testing for, how the procedure is explained and measured. This is where your test environment and setup procedure is important.

Rick Marz
bmaloney
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:37 pm
Occupation: parent
Project Question: which removes grease more dish soap, hand soap or shampoo?
Project Due Date: 2/25/15
Project Status: I am conducting my research

Re: Science Fair

Post by bmaloney »

Hi my son is doing the exact same project. I was just wondering how you did your project? which grease did you use? graphed your results?

thank you so much !!!

Bonnie
bradleyshanrock-solberg
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Re: Science Fair

Post by bradleyshanrock-solberg »

I'm going to stick to this question

> what are the procedure of "which kind of soap removes more grease:hand soap,dish soap,or shampoo"

1. You need to pick some kind of grease to test (bacon grease perhaps, from the sound of it, rather than say, some kind of automobile grease)
2. You need to pick something to stain with the grease (cloth, or perhaps skin (hands), or maybe a counter-top)
3. Stain the object with the grease the same way for each test, making the only difference the soap you use.
4. Use the soap to try to remove the grease. Use a small amount of soap compared to the stain/grease because you want to see "what soap removes the most" and the only way you can tell is by having more grease than any of the soap can completely remove.
5. Describe the effectiveness of the soap by how much grease it removes (eg, if it removes half the grease, 50%, one fourth the grease 25%, etc). The closer to 100% you get, the more effective the soap. Write the results down (soap type, % grease removed)
6. Repeat steps 3-5 at least two more times (experiments have some variability, extra measurements with similar results improve the odds what you observe is probably true)
7. Graph the results. Horizontal scale (X axis) is the type of soap. Vertical scale (Y axis) is % cleaned. Show the results of all 3 tests on one graph (with either bars or plotted points of different colors for each trial) - this lets an observer instantly see which soap was best, and also how similar your different results were within a soap-type (two soaps might be very close, so you'd need all 3 trials to see a real difference)

I hope that helps.
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