I know that you can remove stains and odors from your furniture, carpet, shows, sportswear etc. And if you have especially tough stains you can mix vinegar and baking soda and it solves your problems, that I understand, the chemistry behind it.
But what I don’t comprehend is how using dry baking soda to your couch and rubbing it a bit and let be for 60mins, it should remove odors. How does it happen, putting essentially a powder to to your cushion and it magically removes unwanted things.
I tried to google it but I find only articles of saying baking soda does it but nothing explains the why.
In: Chemistry
Lingering smells usually have a cause, like oils, which get into the fabrics of the couch cushion.
The baking soda attaches to the oils, like soap would, and allows you to vacuum them up. The baking soda itself has a powerful odor, just one that we associate more pleasurably than stale farts and urine, so even the application of baking soda neutralizes the scent… And when you get rid of the oil, you get rid of the source of the scent.
I’d assume it can remove some odors but not too many. It can react with classes of compounds called carboxylic acids, as well as other acidic compounds which sometimes have unpleasant smells, but I don’t think it can do much else. It’s possible that by increasing the pH, it allows the smelly compounds to dissolve and wash off whatever you are treating.
Powerful deodorising compounds like hypochlorite, hydrogen peroxide and ozone all work in similar ways, they are a hail merry attack to pretty much all organic compounds. No organic compounds = no smell. The problem is though that they are so good at shredding organic compounds that they often mess up fabrics and dyes…
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