Alternative Cleaning Solvents Lab Report

I made a lab report regarding a lab that had the following problem....

"How well do alternative cleaning solvents (cooking oil or butter, milk, lemon juice, vinegar, and club soda) work?"

Well, here it is....

Hypothesis:

If we changed the cleaning solvent to take out a stain on a cotton cloth, then lemon juice would be the best alternative cleaning solvent because it contains acidic and can supply some antibacterial, antiseptic concepts regarding cleaning.

Materials:

Other:

-Toothbrush

- (30 by 30) Cloth

-Timer

-Data table

Cleaning Solvents:

-Cooking Oil

-Milk

-Lemon Juice

-Vinegar

-Club Soda

Staining Substances:

-Soil

-Tea

-Grape Juice

-Butter

Variables:

Independent: the type of cleaner

Dependent: Amount of stain was removed or not removed

Controlled: size of the Cloth, amount of detergent & amount of staining and alternative detergent used, time of agitation (circles - scrubbing)

Control Group: Detergent

Method:

1. Divide, as in cut, the cotton cloth into 18 small pieces, 6 for each the alternative cleaning solvents (3 different kinds of stainers).

2. On one of the strips, put 3 drops of the SOIL staining substance on the section furthest to the left

3. Divide the 18 pieces into 3 groups of 6

4. Put GRAPE JUICE on 1 group (6 pieces)

5. Put LEMON JUICE, VINEGAR, COOKING OIL, MILK, CLUB SODA and NORMAL DETERGENT (CONTROL GROUP) on to each of the 6 pieces

6. Put SOIL on another group (6 pieces)

7. Put LEMON JUICE, VINEGAR, COOKING OIL, MILK, CLUB SODA and NORMAL DETERGENT (CONTROL GROUP) on to each of the 6 pieces

8. Put TEA on the last group (6 pieces)

9. Put LEMON JUICE, VINEGAR, COOKING OIL, MILK, CLUB SODA and NORMAL DETERGENT (CONTROL GROUP) on to each of the 6 pieces

8. Scrub with the toothbrush for 30 seconds in a circular motion, 1 circle per second

10. Rinse the section of strip with water for 15 sec.

11. Record observations of how much of the staining substance still remains on the cotton strip

12. Clean the toothbrush until the previous substance is gone

13. Repeat this process, from 3-10, using the alternative cleaning solvents (in the following order: lemon juice, vinegar, cooking oil, club soda, milk and detergent)

Results:

Scale:

Cleanness scale: 1-5 (1=stain is still the same, 5=stain is all gone)

1= stain is still there

2= gone away a bit, still not clean

3= ½ of the stain is gone

4 = Most of it is gone

5 = it completely clean

Type of cleaning substance	Staining Substance - Soil (scale)	Staining Substance - Tea(scale)	Staining Substance - Grape Juice (scale)	Staining Substance - Butter (scale)
Vinegar	Description: stain is still mostly there only a little bit is gone. Rating: 2/5	Description: mostly gone, very light stain Rating: ⅘	Description: Worked fairly fast and if rubbed longer stain would have probably come off. Rating: 4/5	Description:spread out and mostly gone Rating: ⅖
Lemon Juice	Description: worked slowly but the stain was mostly gone Rating: ⅘	Description: Almost all gone but slow Rating: ⅘	Description: A light brown colour, stain still quite evident. Rating: 3/5	Description: Darker spots of yellow in different places Rating: 3/5
Milk	Description: Fast and the result was spotless Rating: 5/5	Description: quickly completely gone Rating: 5/5	Description: Some light spots, but for the most part gone Rating: 4/5	Description: Still spots of colour left, but the majority of the stain was gone Rating: ⅘
Club Soda	Description: no difference still completely there Rating: ⅕	Description: Really close to completely gone Rating: 4/5	Description: It is affective in some areas, but there are still some stains left over Rating: 3/5	Description: Stain only half gone and spread out Rating: 3/5
Cooking oil	Description: Stain is no different, completely there Rating: ⅕	Description: only half of the tea is gone, worked slowly and the stain is spread out Rating: 3/5	Description: the stain spread out a bit more, but still quite evident and not removed. Rating: 3/5	Description: stain spread out in a light shade of yellow Rating: ⅘
Control Group - Detergent	Description: All gone, like milk Rating 5	Description: Like the club soda Rating 4	Description: Same as vinegar Rating 4	Description: small spots on the cloth, not fully gone. Rating: 3

(RECORDED BY KAYA, of course we told her what to write)

Graphs:

(GRAPH MADE BY ME, EMMA)

Conclusion:

From the data my group has collected, we can assume that our hypothesis, "if we changed the cleaning solvent to take out a stain on a cotton cloth, then lemon juice would be the best alternative cleaning solvent because it contains acidic and can supply some antibacterial, antiseptic concepts regarding cleaning", is wrong. It turns out that milk is the most effective cleaning solvent. Lemon juice had an average of 3.5 in the cleanness scale, while milk had an average of 4.5 in the cleanness scale. The cleanness scale, expresses the amount of stain left on the stained cloth. The reason why milk might be a better cleaning solvent is that, after doing a little simple research, all the heterogeneous solvents, milk and detergent, have reasonably high results in the cleanness scale, with an average of 4.25. While homogeneous solvents, vinegar, lemon juice, club soda and cooking oil, have an average of 3. Therefore, it is evident that heterogeneous substances clean better than homogeneous substances. If you look at the particle theory, you can assume that heterogeneous substances cleans better -- the different substances in milk are attracted towards the staining substance, however at different speeds. The heat from the friction of the agitation causes different speeds. With this variety, it is more effective then a substance at one speed.

Throughout this lab, many changes have been made to the method. Our first draft of the method was changed because it was difficult to understand as it was worded unusually -- that was a minor conflict and was fixed quickly. However, when carrying out the lab, numerous problems occurred and, again, we had to change our method. We had to restart our lab two times due to keeping to a needed controlled variable; using the same type of cloth. We had expected that we would use cotton cloth, however our data wasn't accurate because just observing with the naked eye on the cloth that was stained, than cleaned with a cleaning solvent, was not accurate. We then had to restart with a thin white towel, using this cloth, stains were still evident after being cleaned by the cleaning solvents. But then, there was not enough thin white towels for everyone, and the type of cloth had to be changed again. Hence, we restarted. This time we used the countless stained and unusable lab coats. There was another problem as well -- another step that wasn't introduced to us until the day of the lab. This step was rinsing the stained cloth after being scrubbed with a cleaning solvent. This step was needed because that is the usual method to clean stained materials. We decided to have this process take 15 seconds. The data that we recollected the last time, was very similar to the data we had gotten the time before. Because of this, it is very possible that our data is reliable.

If I could do this lab again, I would like to check days before the lab whether or not the method is logical and could be carried out. This means checking if there is enough materials for all experiments, besides my own as well. Having a peer, friend, etc. check our w