i was washing dishes yesterday, and stopped and stared for a while at the bubblse of grease that popped up to the surface of the dishwater. they were slowly decomposed by the soap.
and i got to thinking. is there a release of energy when soap reacts with grease and water?
is the hydrophobic-bonding-to-hydrophobic-bonding-to-hydrophilic a chemical reaction, or a physical reaction?
jb
Well, Cecil does talk, albeit generically, about how soap works. I don’t know if this is precise enough to be of any help, however.
soap works primarily by reducing surface tension of water allowing it to absorb better and mix with dirt/grease etc.
But that is not jb_farley is observing. The grease bubble is being dissolved by the formation of micelle.
It is a physical reaction, not chemical. It could be endothermic or exothermic. I can’t think of a good way to tell which it would be.