Stearic Acid
C[18]H[36]O[2]

Octadecanoic acid

Stearic acid, whose name is derived from the Greek word stear meaning beef fat, is a fatty acid whose sodium salts are the main ingredients of soap, cleaning agents, and chewing gum. The world's first soaps were made using different plants such as Chlorogalum pomeridianium. Recipes for soap using ashes, cypress, and sesame oil were found in Babylon and date from as early as around 2800 BC. Around 300 AD, the Greek physician Galen realized the importance of hygiene and recommended using soap to remove impurities from the body. In the eighth century, soap was produced in Spain, Italy, and the Middle East. Andrew Pears first produced high-quality, transparent soap in London in 1789, and in 1823, Michael Chareoul determined the structure of fatty acids, which enabled the development of the chemical procedures for soap manufacture. Here's a do-it-yourself soap method: Heating fats over steam and under pressure will produce, among other things, glyceriyl tristearte. Treating this product with sodium hydroxide will yield sodium stereate -- the sodium salt of stearic acid, which makes up the soap. The addition of aromatic oils will give your soap a pleasant fragrance. Natural fatty acids are degradable and are today often used in the production of soap and cleaning agents. Soap molecules are used as a bridge between the oily (dirtattracting) and water phases; they are emulsifiers capable of dispersing one liquid into another and forming micelles -- those spheric constructs which have an inner fat-loving and an outer, water-loving shell. Micelles can effectively "trap" dirt, just as modern advertising contends.

Ljiljana Fruk's and Bernd Lintermann's Molecules that Changed the World is part of the publication Molecular Aesthetics, Peter Weibel, Ljiljana Fruk (eds.), published by ZKM | Karlsruhe and The MIT Press in 2013, see: [ Ссылка ]

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