# Can you make oil and water mix? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531 "2005-08-18T03:04:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Thin\_Lizzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Thin\_Lizzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thin_Lizzy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/1 "2005-08-18T03:04:56Z")
Is there a chemical way to force oil and water to mix? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/2 "2005-08-18T03:07:30Z")
[Lizzy, meet Google. Google, Lizzy. I just know the two of you will have a lot to talk about](http://busycooks.about.com/library/glossary/bldefemulsify.htm)! ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/3 "2005-08-18T03:20:24Z")
OK, I apologize for the excessive snarkiness here in GQ. I have relocated the snarkiness to the [Pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=6484971#post6484971). ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/4 "2005-08-18T03:26:29Z")
Use phase transfer agents. Common soap or perhaps not so common quaternary ammonium salts will work. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/5 "2005-08-18T03:44:26Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > [Lizzy, meet Google. Google, Lizzy. I just know the two of you will have a lot to talk about](http://busycooks.about.com/library/glossary/bldefemulsify.htm)! Little known fact not on Google: **Thin Lizzy** is an anagram for **Jinx**. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 10:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/6 "2005-08-18T10:10:08Z")
- - - Yes, but what you use depends on what kinda oil you are dealing with–there’s multitudes of different kinds. The formula for Coca-Cola noted in the Big Secrets books by William Poundstone says that the well-known drink contains alcohol–because some of the flavorings are natural oils that will not mix with water. So they add a bit of alcohol to get them to mix and stay mixed. The end dilution ends up being far less than 1% alcohol. ~ ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/7 "2005-08-18T11:04:41Z")
Aren’t some oils water-soluble? Seems I read somewhere that **lanolin** is the only naturally-occurring oil that’s water-soluble… ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/8 "2005-08-18T11:31:30Z")
I am not sure what you mean by chemical means - any detergent or saop will emulsify the oils into water. It is possible to chemically modify oils to make them water soluble but then they wouldn’t really be oils ---
**Author:** ![scm1001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@scm1001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scm1001)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/9 "2005-08-18T11:33:18Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Use phase transfer agents. Common soap or perhaps not so common quaternary ammonium salts will work. nit pick warning I think you mean surfactants. Phase transfer agents such as quat salts are designed to take inorganic things into organic solvents, not the other way round ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/10 "2005-08-18T14:47:02Z")
I remember being told in elementary school that one of the benefits of doing experiments in orbit in the shuttle is that, due to the greatly reduced gravity, you can make solutions that you can’t make on Earth. One example given was mixing oil and water. I can’t think of any reason why low gravity would make oil and water mix, but I’m not a chemist. So, what’s the straight dope? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/11 "2005-08-18T15:11:27Z")
> [@](#): > > I can’t think of any reason why low gravity would make oil and water mix On earth, the density difference between oil (d=~0.8) and water (d=1.0) causes oil to rise to the top of a mixture. In low gravity there is no top, so the density difference won’t drive a separation. Hydrophicity and surface tension will still promote separation of a space-emulsion, but those forces are weaker than buoyancy. ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/12 "2005-08-18T15:21:10Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Aren’t some oils water-soluble? I thought that, by definition, oils weren’t water soluble? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/13 "2005-08-18T15:30:59Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > I thought that, by definition, oils weren’t water soluble? 😕 Modern machine tools typically use a mixture of water soluable oil and water as coolant. Prior to mixing, it is about the consistancy of 90W gear oil. Mixed, the emulsion is milk-like in appearance and viscosity. Interestingly, “normal” oil won’t mix with the emulsion, it floats on top. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/14 "2005-08-18T15:47:35Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > I thought that, by definition, oils weren’t water soluble? The definition of ‘oil’ is pretty flexible, like the definition of ‘vegetable.’ > [@Kevbo](#): > > Modern machine tools typically use a mixture of water soluable oil and water as coolant. Limonene has gotten to be a popular water soluble, yet oily substance over the past decade. Do modern machine shops smell of orange peels? ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2005, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-you-make-oil-and-water-mix/317531/15 "2005-08-18T16:10:48Z")
By “mix”, we might not mean an emulsion, right? I mean, emulsions aren’t mixed on the scale of the compounds in them, they’re just finely divided droplets of the things that aren’t mixed. First, you can mix oil and water very perfectly if you do it in the gas or supercritical phases. Second, you can mix them very perfectly if you accept having a big ratio between their concentrations. You can get a few ppm of most oils dissolved into water, or vice versa. It’s just mixes like 50:50 or 1:10 or 10:1 that don’t work as liquids.