Did you ever read the list of ingredients on a box of powdered laundry detergent? Probably not. Do you know what all the chemicals in the detergent do? Do you know how they help to get your clothes fresh and clean? In this activity, you will investigate the properties of one ingredient, aluminosilicate. The particular aluminosilicate used in powdered laundry detergent is sodium zeolite A. In this activity, you will extract sodium zeolite A from powdered laundry detergent and examine its properties.
More Information
Citation
J. Chem. Educ.1999 76 1416A.
Keywords
Teaching / Learning Aids; Materials Science; Introductory / High School Chemistry; Classroom Activity
Our Secondary School editors work hard to distill all the JCE materials to produce a fraction of particular interest to high school teachers. We call it CLIC.
In recent years we have worked hard to better match our advertisers with our readers. When shopping for chemistry education materials, visit our advertisers' WWW sites first.
Take JCE along on your outreach missions. Copies of the Journal, guest access to JCE Online, our publications catalog, and more are available for your participants.