Have you ever imagined your life without soaps, soaps and detergents?
First thing in the morning, as soon as we wake up, usually the first thing we do is wash our face with soap. We use soap to wash clothes and shoes; and soaps and detergents for washing dishes. When we go to the bathroom, we wash our hands and shower using soap. Anyway, there is an infinite number of uses for soap and its use has already become a question of hygiene, necessity and even health.
But when did soap come about?
Soap emerged gradually, throughout human history, and its production is one of the oldest activities performed by human beings. The first records of a material similar to today's soap were found on a clay plate from approximately 2800 BC. C., in the region of ancient Babylon, which today corresponds to the region of Iraq.
The production of soap and soap follows practically the same basic rule: it is a reaction between a fatty acid (fats and oils of vegetable or animal origin) with a alkaline material
, that is, of basic character. Typically, the base is sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which is known as caustic soda.
Basic soap and glycerin production.
Thus, the first soaps were mixtures of animal fats (tallow), as the fatty material, with wood ashes, which have alkaline substances. If there was no ash, the waters of rivers that used to be alkaline, such as the waters of the Nile River in Egypt, would evaporate.
The production of soap developed more and more and it came to be considered a luxury item in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was mainly produced in France and Italy.
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Soaps started to be produced in European industries, following an exact chemical formula.
A major step in large-scale commercial soap making occurred in 1791, when French chemist Nicolas Leblanc (1742-1806) discovered how to manufacture soda ash, called soda ash, by reacting the sodium chloride present in common kitchen salt with the fat. This was an advance because the soda ash was much cheaper and there was a lot of salt.
Barrilha and its creator, Nicolas Leblanc.
In mid-1878, Harley Procter and James Gamble of the United States managed to produce the soap, whose production difference is in the use of purer fatty acids. Today, essences, dyes and whitening substances, such as titanium dioxide, are also added.
With regard to the production of detergents, it began in 1890, when the German chemist A. Krafft found that small chains of alcohol-bound molecules worked like soap.
During the First World War there was a lack of grease to produce soap in Germany, because there was a blockade of the allied countries. Thus, in 1916, two German chemists, H. Gunther and M. Hetzer, managed to develop the first synthetic detergent for commercial use, called Nekal. The name detergent comes from the Latin detoxify, which means “clean”.
Since 1950, detergent has been manufactured using oil as its raw material.
Jennifer Fogaça
Graduated in Chemistry
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
FOGAÇA, Jennifer Rocha Vargas. "History of Soap"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/quimica/historia-sabao.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
