About My Research

1. Cleaning with Food About My Research IRS Project by Lee Vint Ve Results 1. My Research Topic My project is about household substitutes for dishwashing liquid/ detergent on grease (cooking oil stains) on tupperware. The aim of this is to find the best household substitute for detergent and to help make cleaning grease off Tupperware and similar materials easier (as I personally think it is a labour to clean grease) and also to provide a cheap and easy alternative to detergent to use on grease in general in case detergent runs out and is not easily available. Among many choices, I chose to use several food substances as testing liquids- diluted lemon juice, baking soda solution, Coca-Cola, Sprite and vinegar as I have found surprisingly high level of acid in some of these foodstuffs and some of the acids have been known to be used in commercial detergent and other cleaning agents. 2. Background information 1. Interpretation • The science behind the experiment centres around the ability of certain weak acids (commonly found in foods) to break down and ultimately, remove grease stains off materials such as Tupperware. Some acids, like citric acid, found in lemon juice and some brands of flavoured drink like Sprite, have been known to be used in dishwashing liquid. This can be related to bile salts and lipase for their ability to break down the fatty acids and vegetable oils in our digestive system that can be found in almost all types of cooking oils. From the data Ihad collected, I can interpret that diluted lemon juice is the best household substitute for dishwashing liquid, with vinegar coming next in the overall category, probably due to the high amounts of citric acid found in lemons, which is a weak acid known to be used as a cleaning agent in some detergents. Also, some of the food substitute that I tested which fared well in the test has high levels of acids in them, explaining their cleaning properties. However, the baking soda solution worked well during the soak test but did not fare as well during my scrub test. My hypothesis for this is that the baking soda took a longer time to react and mix with the water and with the grease, but I did not give it time to do so. Also, the baking soda might only work under have been known to have higher temperature, therefore the possible need of heated water. Another thing is that the coke had up to some extent cleaning properties, but however has not proven to be effective cleaning agent and did badly compared to lemon juice. Also, I found that although Coca-Cola and Pepsi have vast amounts of phosphoric acid, but the cleaning abilities are less than lemon and Sprite’s because of 2 reasons: the pH levels of acid is much lower than the citric acid which is found in lemons and Sprite, and the sugar in the drinks balance the phosphoric acid. However, Sprite has less concentration of citric acid than lemons, with vinegar coming second as it contains ethanoic acid, which has a pH level between that of Citric acid and phosphoric acid. 3. Reason For this topic • Since primary one,I have been constantly hearing the myth (first from my Primary One teacher) that coke has cleaning properties, even seeing it being mentioned on the popular documentary series Mythbusters. That was enough to make me wonder about cleaning properties in other foodstuff (and doubt the properties of coke), and how it can be applied into real-life applications (and to make the labour of dishwashing easier). I also started to wonder about the science behind the cleaning property of coca-cola. The Experiment Conclusion & Acknowledgements 1. Steps for the Experiment Preparation: Before the experiment, I put the tupperware into 2 categories (soak and scrub) Scrub Test 1. The first step in my experiment is to pour a spoonful of cooking oil (grease) and rub it on the surface of the tupperware 2. Next, I poured 100ml of the testing liquid (listed below) into the container 3. Then, I used a sponge and scrubbed the tupperware for exactly 60 seconds 4. After that, I removed the remaining testing liquid in the container 5. Then, I used pieces of tissue paper to rub the remaining grease off, then recorded the results Soak Test 6. Repeat step 1 and 2, with the same amount of grease but 500ml of testing liquid 7. Leave the set-ups for 24 hours 8. Repeat stops 4 and 5 1. Conclusion of Experiment My conclusion is that foods containing citric acid are the most effective cleaning substitutes of detergent with Ethanoic acid being next and lastly phosphoric acid, with lemon being the best substitute due to its extremely high concentration of citric acid. 2. References Wikipedia(2010) Citric Acid- Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia [online]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid. Accessed on 5 July 2010. MizkanAmericas,inc(2010) Vinegar Tips: Cleaning with vinegar [online]. Available from http://www.vinegartips.com/scripts/pageViewSec.asp?id=7. Accessed on 10 July 2010. T. Zeigler(2000) Coke: A Household Cleaner[online]. Available from http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_coca_cola.htm . Accessed on 10 July 2010 Break The Chain(2003) Break The Chain-Have a Coke and have a Snarl[online]. Available from http://www.breakthechain.org/exclusives/coke.html . Accessed on 23 June 2010. Wikipedia(2010) Bile- Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia [online]. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile. Accessed on 10 September. Mallinckrodt Baker, Inc. (2010) PHOSPHORIC ACID [online]. Available from http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/p3973.htm. Accessed 15 August Special thanks: I would also like to thank my teacher mentors Mrs Esther Koh and Mrs Koh Yong Yong for their support, and my parents for helping me in the experiment 2. Sample Scrub Test: Soak Test: 100ml of coca-cola 500ml of coca-cola 100ml of diluted lemon juice 500ml of diluted lemon juice 100ml of vinegar 500ml of vinegar 100ml of baking soda solution 500ml of baking soda solution 100ml of pepsi500ml of pepsi 100ml of sprite 500ml of sprite 100ml of water (control experiment) 500ml of water 100ml of detergent (comparison) 500ml of detergent Pictures Scrub Test Set-up Results of Soak Test Soak Test Set-up Soak Test Set-up Soak Test Set-up Results of Scrub Test