soap and detergent: Quick Facts

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Photos and Videos

French soap-boiling plant, 1771

steps in the manufacture of synthetic detergents

Diagram showing a single fatty acid molecule with a pink hydrophilic head and blue hydrophobic tail, and a spherical micelle formed by many such molecules arranged with heads outward and tails inward.

How Does Hand Sanitizer Kill Germs?

How soap cleans away dirt

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Topics

nigre laundry soap toilet soap hydrolyzer process cold method spent lye boiling semiboiled method salting out saponification construction printing textile aerospace industry pharmaceutical industry chemical industry automotive industry drug electronics explosive

Key People

Procter, William Cooper

William Cooper Procter

American businessman

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William Hesketh Lever

British entrepreneur

Michel-Eugène Chevreul, c. 1860

Michel-Eugène Chevreul

French chemist