What is a surfactant and why is it useful?
In: Chemistry
Some molecules are kinda like magnets. Different parts of the molecules have different charges and they all attract or repel each other. That’s why water forms beads.
Some molecules are kinda like marbles. They don’t have any charges and don’t interact much, if at all. That’s why oil doesn’t form beads.
If you mix some magnets and some beads, the magnets will all attract each other and clump up. The marbles will just sit there and make way for the magnets to clump up. A surfactant is a molecule made up of mostly marbles but has magnets at the end. When you add enough of these, they’ll form balls with the magnet ends pointing outside and the marble ends on the inside. That way you can have little balls of marbles throughout the magnet soup.
Now replace the magnets with water and the marbles with oil, dirt, or any number of things. That’s how soaps work. That’s also why your skin feels dry after you use soap. Your skin has natural oils on it that prevent you from losing too much water. When you use soap, you strip those oils off it.
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