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Eco laundry liquids...

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librarian:

--- Quote from: ravenbait on 17 August, 2023, 02:05:29 pm ---As I understand it, soap is a potassium or sodium salt of a long carbon chain fatty acid. The fatty acid hates water and wants to keep away from it, like a cat finding it has snowed outside. The head of the soap molecule is more like a labrador who has just seen his owner chuck a stick in a lake. So it's basically a cat tied to a labrador by a fuzzy cord. The cat will cling to anything, including magnesium and calcium ions.

(Kind of.)

Detergents (long-chain carboxylic acid quaternary ammonium salts -- a hydrophobic cap on a long chain hydrocarbon attached to a hydrophilic head) have a cat at the end of a long leash tied to a golden retriever. This cat is pickier -- say a Siamese? (I don't know cats.)

Detergents dissolve in hard water without forming a scum, unlike soap, because the cat doesn't like Calcium or Magnesium so much.

Um. This metaphor got away from me.

Sam

--- End quote ---

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