Why does it foam when adding detergent when washing dishes? When we wash dishes in the kitchen, we usually add detergent to get rid of oil stains. The general situation is that when we drop detergent into the water, a lot of foam will be produced during the washing process. Perhaps you have always wondered: How do bubbles come about?
Foam from the washing process. To understand this phenomenon, of course, you need to know the composition of detergent. In fact, this is the secret.
The main component of detergent is a surfactant, which is usually an amphiphilic organic compound, which means that it contains hydrophobic groups and hydrophilic groups. As the name suggests, hydrophobic groups are characterized by repelling and tending to stay away from water, but they tend to be close to oils, so they are also called "lipophilic groups"; hydrophilic groups, on the contrary, tend to be close to water and away from oils.
When washing dishes, through the washing process, the oil stains attached to the bowl are broken into small oil droplets. During this process, the surfactant wraps each small oil droplet particle and separates it from the water: the hydrophobic groups gather inside close to the oil droplets to avoid contact with water molecules, while the hydrophilic groups are exposed to the outside. In contact with water, the combined effect of the two separates the water from the oil droplets, so that the headache oil stains attached to the bowl can be easily washed away by the water.
During the process of coating the oil droplets with surfactants, due to the changes in the airflow caused by washing, air takes advantage of the gap and enters the "wrapping", so bubbles are generated one by one. Because the presence of surfactants can greatly reduce the surface tension of water, this ensures the stability of the foams to a certain extent, so these foams will not easily burst. in
At this point, I can't help but sigh that just a little bit of detergent, supplemented by a slight washing, can make such a significant change in the state of things.