Let me introduce the authors
First we have Wathelokko which is Nicholas Lim Zhi Wern he wrote the post concerning fast food.
Second we have Say Thin chu which is Chu Say Thin who wrote about Soap
Our third author is Mei Qi which is Hee Mei Qi who wrote about achne
Our last and final author is Shun Lin which is Wong Shun Lin who wrote about polymers.
That will be all I hope our blog has given you readers sufficient information concerning our topics. Any questions that you have you may ask by leaving a comment at the concerned post and we will get back to you as soon as we can. Thank you

Chemistry in acne products

            Acne problem is quite common nowadays especially for teenagers. So what is your first reaction when the picture shown above comes across your mind? Oh my god? Yuck? How come this happen? Did the person not get enough sleep or rest in the past few days or have taken too much oily food? If you are that person or maybe he or she is your friend, what suggestions you will give and how you going to solve this problem?

I am pretty sure that buy over-the-counter products will be the primary solution for most of the readers. But,  there are so many acne products available in this market, such as Clean and Clear, Oxy, Neutrogena, Biore and etc. which ones you gonna to choose? Erm, I guess most of you will end up buying the products that your friends recommended. Have you ever asked yourself, it is the acne product you choose is suit your skin condition?  Different people has different skin condition, the acne product your friends recommended doesn’t mean is suit you (possibly more and more acnes appear or allergic to certain chemicals). Therefore, today I’m going to write a blog post about the ingredients that you may found in most of the acne products and what of its function.

First and foremost, salicylic acid is commonly found in acne products. It is a compound that obtained naturally from the bark of the white willow and wintergreen leaves and it can be prepared synthetically. Its molecular formula is C₇H₆O_3, which also known as 2-hydroxybenzenecarboxylic acid. The diagram below shows the chemical structure of salicylic acid:

You may be shock that as you possibly will find this in most of the fever pills, relieve pain products because salicylic acid is the main metabolite of aspirin.  Not only acne products but some of the cleanser contains this ingredient as well.

Its function included:

• Promotes the healthy shedding of skin cells
•  Skin cell slough off more steadily 
• Prevents the dead skin cells from combining with the sebum on your skin
• Prevents the pores from clogging up
• Softens and loosens dry, scaly or thickened skin so that the skin cells can be removed easily
• Reduces redness and unplugging blocked skin pores to allow pimples to shrink

*Due to its acidic nature properties, salicylic acid is toxic to bacteria. Consequently, this ingredient is common and found in most of the acne products.  

Resorcinol is another ingredient than you may found in acne products. The molecular formula of resorcinol is C₆H₄ (OH) ₂ and it also known as benzene-1,3-diol.

Its function includes:

• Remove hardened, roughly and scaly skin cells
• Break down the comedones (small, flesh-colored, white, or dark bumps that form a rough texture on skin).

The diagram below shows the chemical structure of resorcinol:

Those black spots are comedones  

The comedones formed by acne and mostly found at the opening of a pore associated with acne. By breaking down the comedones may remove the obstructions that blockage your pores as well. Make sure that you are not allergic to resorcinol. It is only allowed to use on skin, avoid from your eyes and mouth. Be careful, there are few possible side effects of resorcinol. Such as nausea, headache, slow heart rate, skin irritation or skin redness. If you have any of these symptoms, must immediately stop using the acne product and seek help from medicals professionals.  Moreover, remember don’t use too much of resorcinol as it may absorb into our bloodstream and to prevents any side effects occur.

            Other than salicylic acid and resorcinol, benzoyl peroxide is another acne product’s ingredient. The molecular formula is C₁₄H₁₀O₄. Benzoyl peroxide has been used to remove acnes for few decades. The chemical structure of benzoyl peroxide as shown below:

 

One of its significant functions: target a specific bacterium, known as propionibacterium acnes and markedly reduce it. What is propionibacterium acne? Propionibacterium acne is a bacterium that present on all human skin and mostly detected after puberty. This bacterium caused the growing of acne. You may curious on how benzoyl peroxide kills this specific bacterium. Benzoyl peroxide is an oxidizer, with the present of oxygen, propionibacterium acnes cannot survive.

Propionibacterium

Other functions of benzoyl peroxide:

•  Frees the skin from excess oil, mainly around nose, forehead and cheeks and smaller the skin pores
•  Keep the skin pores away from debris and bacteria
• Prolong using benzoyl peroxide minimize the chance of the further outbreak of acne as well

Nonetheless, benzoyl peroxide can cause several side effects. For example, skin irritation, skin redness, itching, slight stinging or dryness of skin. Picture as shown below: skin irritate due to benzoyl peroxide

            A lot of ingredients have its own side effects. Remember read or check the ingredients and the directions to prevent allergic reaction or side effects. If you feel uncomfortable, instantaneously stop using the acne product and ask for help from doctors or pharmacist.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRODUCT, SAY GOODBYE TO ACNES.

Thanks for reading ; )    

Polymers

In our everyday life, we often give credit to engineers for creating new gadgets to improve our standard of living. However, do u ever give a though of where did all the plastics and other materials that make productions these gadgets possible? It is the credits of chemist mostly those polymer scientist that have done extensive research that our life is so much easier today.

What are polymers? Polymers are large molecules that are produces from small molecules by polymerization via chemical reaction. These large molecules exist as chains of smaller molecules and these chains are held together by intermolecular forces such as van der waals forces or hydrogen bonds. The special thing about polymers is that they are partially crystalline and partially amorphous. They do not simply form large crystals but rather crystalline regions called crystallites within an amorphous base. These regions where segments of the chains lie close together and those that are regularly packed together would be crystalline and those where segments of the chains are not regularly packed would be amorphous.

There a lot of types of polymers. However, polymers can be classified into three category that is elastomers, thermoplastics (thermoplastic polymers) and thermosets (thermosetting polymers). Elastomers are polymers that can be stretched easily to several times their original length and return to their original state when the applied stress is released. Elastomers has this kind of property are due to their lightly cross-linked with covalent bonds. The scarce number of cross link causes the polymer to return to its original state when applied stress is released. These polymers are usually come from natural rubber or syntheric rubber.

The second type of polymer is thermoplastics which can be repeatedly softened by heating and solidified by cooling without decomposition. Hence, their shape can be manipulated by repeatedly heating and cooling. In thermoplastics, there are no covalent cross links between the polymers chains but is replaced by weak van der waals forces or hydrogen bonds instead. When heat is applied to it, these bonds can be easily broken and the polymer chains can slide over one another making it easy for shape manipulation. The ability to be remolded makes thermoplastics extremely useful in industry and the production of thermoplastics greatly exceeds than that of thermosets. Some of the thermosets are polyethene , poly propene or polyphenylethene which are usually the plastic that are found in our every life usage.

Thermosets on the other hand are polymers which its shape cannot be changed once it is solidified. Hence, they can be only be moulded once. This is because they are extensive covalent cross links between the polymer chains making the polymer structure rigid and strong. Some examples of thermosets are Bakelite, polyurethanes and epoxy resins.

How soap is actually made and how it acts as a cleansing agent?

“Lux, Dove, Palmolive, Nivea…” all  these are very common brands and products of soap that can be found everywhere in the market. Soap is an essential cleansing agent that we used for bathing, cleaning and washing in our daily life. It helps us to get rid of stain and wash away oil, grease and dirt. Nowadays, there are many different types of soap produced by the soap industries for various usages such as personal use soap, kitchen soap, laundry soap and medicated soap. We know soap is necessary in our life and we use it every day. However, have you ever wondered how soap is made and how it acts as a cleansing agent?

          Soap is made in a process called saponification. The three main ingredients in soap-making are triglyceride, lye and water. Triglyceride is the main constituent of vegetable oils and animal oils. It is formed by the ester linkage of three fatty acids to a glycerol. Fatty acids consist of long hydrocarbon chain with carboxyl group (-COOH) at one end. They can be either saturated or unsaturated. Saturated fatty acid such as stearic acid does not have double bonds between the carbon atoms. On the other hand, unsaturated fatty acid such as oleic acid has one or more double bonds between the carbon atoms. Glycerol or propane-1, 2, 3-triol is an alcohol with three carbon atoms and three hydroxyl (-OH) groups.

          Lye is a strong alkali used in saponification. Lyes can either be prepared as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) or potassium hydroxide (caustic potash). Traditionally, lye was prepared by pouring water to wood ashes. This is because the ashes contain potassium carbonate, the solution that results is basic. Lye is very corrosive chemical that can causes serious injury and damage. Thus, it must be handled in a safe and proper way. When triglyceride is hydrolyzed with the presence of strong alkali, the ester linkage is broken down. As a result of this reaction, a glycerol molecule and fatty acid salt are produced. The fatty acid salt that formed is called soap. This is also the industrial method to prepare glycerol.

saponification of triglyceride by using sodium hydroxide as lye

          Soap can be categorized into two kinds: soft soap and hard soap. Soft soap is more readily dissolve in water compared to hard soap. Soft soap is made by using caustic potash whereas hard soap is made by using caustic soda. In addition, soft soap can be prepared by either using cold process or hot process, but hard soap can only be prepared by using hot process. The cold process soap-making requires several days until the soap is completely saponified. Unlike cold processed soap, the hot process soap-making takes only a few hours. Hot process soap-making is more preferable than cold process soap-making because in hot process, exact measurement of the amount of lye and fats/oils is not required. 

This video shows the demonstration of making soap (Adapted from website http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFpZYfwbR-E)

          A soap molecule is made up of both polar and non-polar structures. One end is the long hydrocarbon chain which is non-polar and hydrophobic while another end is hydrophilic head consists of sodium or potassium ion. The non-polar end tends to attract non-polar molecules such as grease and oil and the polar end attracts water.  When soap is dissolved in water, the sodium or potassium ions will move freely in the solution.The long chain carboxylate ions do not exist as individual ions in aqueous solution. Instead, they will arrange themselves in a spherical clusters called micelles. A soap micelle is formed with hydrophilic heads point outwards, forming outer surface of the spherical structure and the non-polar tails are buried in the center of micelle in order to minimize their contact with water. 

          Water alone is not a very effective cleaner because dirt is carried by non-polar molecules. Soap acts as an emulsifier by trapping the fats/oils within the micelles. Since the surface of micelles is charged, therefore individual micelles repel each other instead of clustering together. The soap micelles are easily washed away in soft water. However, the concentrations of calcium and magnesium are high in hard water, micelles will aggregates to form precipitate that we called soap scum.

The cleansing action of soap ( Adapted from website  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjZDTiV2s_w&feature=fvwrel)

          Soap making is actually creative and fun. It is not really difficult to make your own soap. You can get more information and learn more about soap making here <http://www.soap-making-resource.com/>.       

   

You Are What You Eat!

Eating is a part of our everyday lives. We eat as it is essential for our survival. But are we aware on what we are eating? Do we actually understand what are the benefits and harms of the food we are consuming to our body? The answer for these questions for most of you readers is NO!

Fast food chain outlets such as McDonalds, Burger King, KFC are everywhere in the world. And due to their rich flavours human crave for it. Little do they know that what they are consuming is worse than eating their own shit. In fact it is a lot healthier eating shit than that garbage most of our society call food. Dear readers I am about to enlighten you on the chemicals these scoundrels in McDonalds have been using to produce the food you crave for so much. I would like to ask you to leave this blog as after reading the next paragraph your view on McDonalds will never be the same again. Let’s first start with the McNuggets. Every child’s favourite. McNuggets are made of 50% white chicken. And guess what the other 50% is made of. You guess it chemicals. Dr Mercola a researcher on this McNuggets quoted "Chicken McNuggets, rather than being merely chicken fried in a pan, are a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook." Now what are these chemicals found in McFrankenstein Chicken McNuggets?

Coming in first place is an organic chemical known as dimethylpolysiloxane. This is the chemical commercially used in cosmetics, hair conditioners, and dare I say it filler fluid in breast implants. Yeah that’s right you’re eating food plastic surgeons use to enlarge breast. Congratulations! Now let’s go into detail about this chemical. Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) belongs to a group of polymeric organosilicon compounds that are commonly referred to as silicones. PDMS is the most widely used silicon-based organic polymer, and is particularly known for its unusual rheological (or flow) properties. PDMS is optically clear, and, in general, is considered to be inert, non-toxic and non-flammable. I know what you must be thinking, Its NON-TOXIC. Yes my dear reader it does say non-toxic but think about Dimethylpolysiloxane, although typically listed as an “antioxidant,” is not a natural antioxidant but instead a synthetic chemical preservative found in many processed foods, varnishes, lacquers, and pesticides, among others. Would you eat that? I know I won’t and I haven’t even gotten to the best part.

Structure Of the Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)

          Besides that, tertiary butylhydroquinone is also present. What’s so dangerous about this chemical one may ask. Well “A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives, quoted”One gram can cause nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.” Yeah that’s right too many of those Chicken McNuggets made by McFrenkenstein and the Grim Reaper will be knocking on your door. Tertiary butylhydroquinone is more often used as a food preservative. And although both the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have evaluated TBHQ and determined that it is safe to consume at the concentration allowed in foods, we cannot ignore the fact that Tertiary butylhuydroquinone can promote the activation of cancerous cells when we are exposed to it for a long period of time. After knowing this will you dear reader continue to eat food from McDonalds? Will you value your life as it is? By the way this is only on the McNuggets, I haven’t even begun to mention McFrenkenstein’s French fries and burgers which I WILL in my next blog entry.

To find out more on what McDonalds and other Fast Food Chain Outlests have been doing to our body there was a documentary called Super Size Me that really opened my eyes. Here is the link for the full video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-eRXuuH9AI