Science Behind the Products

This is Pure White Vinegar, from Allen's. It has been used for many many years as a natural home cleaning agent. The science behind vinegar isn't so complicated since it really only contains a few ingredients. The main two are water and acetic acid, the active ingredient.

Acetic acid is the main active ingredient in all pure white vinegar substances. It's chemical formula, CH₃COOH can also be written as CH₃CO₂H. This main active ingredient is a molecular compound, since it contains all non-metals. This acidic substance has a pH level of 2.4 and as a concentration in the specific pure white vinegar that I used, it has a 5% concentration.

Lewis Dot Structure of Acetic Acid

Environmentally, this product as a home cleaning agent is one of the safest and friendly products to use. First of all, because it is edible, it cannot be harmful to human health. Since it cannot be harmful to human health, there is no way it can be harmful to the environment. Although the odour is a strong pungent one, it's the way it naturally is and does not affect human health. It is safe, edible, environmentally friendly and biodegradable.  Vinegar does not contain harmful toxic chemicals and it is all natural. Acetic acid on the other hand is flammable and corrosive.

Corrosive

Flammable

As a disinfectant, vinegar has been proven to be a mild and natural disinfectant. Although the disinfectant capabilities may be stronger if it were to be combined with other products. Vinegar alone is not truly strong enough to disinfect household surfaces and cleaning jobs completely. Acetic acid on the other hand has disinfecting capabilities with it's pH of 2.4, it can kill bacteria because of it's acidity. 

Now onto the science of Spray 'n Wash Dual Power. This is a product that came out to use on the toughest of laundry stains. Since this product contains 2 different sides with 2 different substances, it was quite hard to figure out the main active ingredients. The left side is the Oxi Action liquid and the right side is the Stain Combat. When these 2 combine together, they're supposed to combine to be a very strong stain remover. The active ingredient of this product is called Lauryl Alcohol Ethoxylates.

The chemical formula for this main active ingredient is C₁₂H₂₅(OCH₂CH₂)_nOH. It is classified as a "non-ionic" compound and from the elements in the formula, it seems to be a molecular compound. It was complicated to find concrete evidence is this active ingredient was truly molecular or not. As a concentration in Spray 'n Wash Dual Power, it is between 7%-13% of the product's ingredients.

Lewis Dot Structure of Lauryl Alcohol Ethoxylates

Environmentally, Spray 'n Wash Dual Power is not very harmful to the environment. Although when it is being used, gloves are recommended since it is corrosive. This is a product that is very corrosive to the eyes and very harmful if it is swallowed. It should be kept out of reach of children. Personally, the smell of vinegar was much stronger and pungent than the smell of Spray 'n Wash Dual Power but health wise, this product is worse for the environment and human health than vinegar. Health wise, this product could have serious consequences. It has minimal flammability, it has a slight physical hazard (that's why gloves are used when handling this product) and it may cause burns if it comes into contact with skin. This product is more harmful to human health than it is on the environment. Components of active ingredient may have potential harms to the environment. It has moderate to high toxic harms to aquatic organisms.

Corrosive

As a disinfectant, this product has no facts, information or history of being a disinfectant. Since this product is made solely for laundry stains, it only removes stains on clothes. Those clothes should then be put into the wash where the hot water, detergent or soap will then disinfect the clothes. This product was not made to be a disinfectant which is why there is no history and no fact about it being a true disinfectant.


Now that you know the Science Behind the Products, please click on the Risk-Benefit and Pros and Cons table link.