Vodka is more than a drink, It has Many uses.

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

Interesting you should mention this. When I was a troubleshooter for MUNI, I often came in contact with grungy metals...the bottoms of streetcars, areas underneath subway platforms, couplers, etc. Frequently I ended up with greasy black gunk on my hands. I'd try to be very careful until I could get to a restroom or lunchroom where I could find liquid soap. I'd squirt some on, work it into the gunk, and then remove it with paper towels. THEN I'd wash my hands. But first round I used only liquid soap. It worked like I charm. I don't have the chemical background you do, so I guess it was just dumb luck that I figured it out...

Fern

Which reminds me . . do they still make Lava soap or Boraxo hand soap ?
My Dad used to use this stuff.

In fact, when renovating an old house with a big staircase and gunked up old banister, my contractor told me to use Lava soap. I used Orange Glo and Murphy's, but was intrigued by the Lava suggestion.

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

Yes, very different from IPA. If it gets warm this afternoon, I'll probably have some IPA myself. Inversion IPA is a good choice if you can find it.

Yes, I enjoyed a Virgin Islands IPA while on St. John. St. John Brewers -Virgin Islands Pale Ale - Home

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

But first round I used only liquid soap. It worked like I charm.

It does work well, doesn't it?? For years in my garage I was cutting grease off my hands with gasoline, then cleaning off the gasoline with liquid soap. Then one day I realized I could skip the gasoline if I just used the detergent to mobilize the grease.

But the key, as you noted, is to add little or no water to the liquid soap or detergent. If there is any interaction of grease with water, the grease will stay put.

The same approach also works well with fresh tree sap, but tree sap requires a bit of scrubbing to get it to dissolve in the detergent. After the tree sap starts to dry, the sap becomes oblivious to detergent

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

"Detergent molecules have two ends: one is hydrophobic (usually alkyl or benzyl) and the other is hydrophilic (usually carboxlyic acid or sulfate, something that is charged).

The detergent molecules surround the hydrophobic solute (grease, protein, etc.) by sticking with their hydrophobic end, and the hydrophilic ends maintain a solvation shell around the new micelle that has encapsulated the solute."

Could not have said this better.

Now you know.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Yes, I enjoyed a Virgin Islands IPA while on St. John. St. John Brewers -Virgin Islands Pale Ale - Home

Maybe we can hijack this into an IPA thread.

Hales Ales also makes a very fine IPA.

Anybody else have any IPA recommendations?

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

Not a hijacking, more of a metamorphosis as we are still talking ETOH/grain alcohol, techically.

How Kafkaesque of us.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

"Detergent molecules have two ends: one is hydrophobic (usually alkyl or benzyl) and the other is hydrophilic (usually carboxlyic acid or sulfate, something that is charged).

The detergent molecules surround the hydrophobic solute (grease, protein, etc.) by sticking with their hydrophobic end, and the hydrophilic ends maintain a solvation shell around the new micelle that has encapsulated the solute."

Could not have said this better.

Now you know.

That's the typical way a detergent is deployed, as when doing dishes. The procedure I described (using detergent with no water) inverts the description. That is, the detergent molecules surround the [STRIKE]hydrophobic[/STRIKE] hydrophilic solute [STRIKE](grease, protein, etc.)[/STRIKE] (the little bit of water added) by sticking with their [STRIKE]hydrophobic[/STRIKE] hydrophilic end, and the [STRIKE]hydrophilic [/STRIKE] hydrophobic ends maintain a solvation shell around the new micelle that has encapsulated the solute."

Thus, instead of creating an hydrophilic solution that carries the hydrophobes (oil) in micelles, I create a hydrophobic solution that carries the water inside micelles. That preparation is a much stronger grease remover, as Fern noted.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Not a hijacking, more of a metamorphosis as we are still talking ETOH/grain alcohol, techically.

How Kafkaesque of us.

Well, carboxylic acid as well.

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

Chemistry major, I presume ?

I was a nursing major with a minor in chemistry.

A chemist walks into a pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, "Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?"
"You mean aspirin?" asked the pharmacist. "That's it, I can never remember that word."

B.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Chemistry major, I presume ?

I was a nursing major with a minor in chemistry.

B.

Civil engineer, originally, doing environmental engineering. Now I'm closer to a chemical engineer than a civil engineer.

As one of my profs described it: Those chemical engineers in the other building are looking to build a reactor that will operate at 90% to 99% efficiency. As an environmental engineer, you get to clean up their mess. 90% to 99% reaction efficiency means 1% to 10 % waste. To discharge that waste, you need to clean that waste to 0.0001 percent, which is 99.99% to 99.999% efficiency. Guess which one of you will get a bonus and a promotion?

Environmental chemistry is the chemistry of dilute solutions. In dilute solutions, virtually every reaction of importance occurs at a surface or interface. Thus, you need to have good grounding in surface chemistry. One of the best classes I ever took in my life was a UC-Berkeley extension class in surface chemistry. Filled in a good number of the holes I had in my formal training.

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

Impressive !

Then you'll get this joke:

The Car

There were three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer, and a Microsoft engineer.

Suddenly, the car stops running and they pull off to the side of the road wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault may have occurred.

The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

The Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, came up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, and open all the windows and see if it works?"

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

Even I got that one

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

The Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, came up with a suggestion. "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, and open all the windows and see if it works?"

In engineering circles, Microsoft is known as the company that engineered a system that you stop by pushing a button labeled "Start".

Can you identify this compound?

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

In engineering circles, Microsoft is known as the company that engineered a system that you stop by pushing a button labeled "Start".

Can you identify this compound?

Ether bunny ?

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

In engineering circles, Microsoft is known as the company that engineered a system that you stop by pushing a button labeled "Start".

Can you identify this compound?

Ether bunny ?

Yep - that's the ether bunny.

Do you know what this is?