Bleaching structure/properties

Chemistry is the study of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of matter. Matter is another word for all the substances that make up our world. Perhaps you imagine that chemistry takes place only in a laboratory where a chemist is working in a white coat and goggles. Actually, chemistry happens all around you every day and has an impact on everything you use and do. You are doing chemistry when you cook food, add bleach to your laundry, or start your car. A chemical reaction has taken place when silver tarnishes or an antacid tablet fizzes when dropped into water. Plants grow because chanical reactions convert... 

Commercial heparin preparations are also frequently bleached with oxidants (for example, KMn04 and H202),32 a treatment that must lead to some modification of their original structure and biological properties. 

I. Janicot, A. Bouchu, G. Descotes, and E. Wong, Correlation structure-activity in the bleaching properties of peracetylated carbohydrates, Tenside Surfactants Deterg., 33 (1996) 290-296. 

Cystine, which contains a disulfide bond, is reported to be the most numerous and reactive amino acid present in hair keratin. Disulfide bonds in cystine are reduced by mercaptans and phosphines, and oxidized by perborates, bromates, and bleach. These reactions result in structural rearrangements within keratin which may affect the physiochemical properties of hair, since disulfide bonds in cystine contribute to the stability of hair. For example, hydrogen peroxide bleaching of hair is an oxidative process which occurs readily in an alkaline medium. This results in the formation of perhydroxy anions which have been proposed to react with cystine to form cysteic acid residues. The process of bleaching results in the loss of approximately 15% of the cystine bonds originally present in keratin and may explain the increased permeability of bleached hair to chemicals. - ... 

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