Invert soaps

Figure 4, Representative Topic— Biochemistry/ Part I, Invert Soaps and Tetrazolium Salts, Page 59...

Kuhn, Richard. (1900-1967). A German chemist who won the Nobel Prize in 1938. He worked on cartinoids and synthetic vitamins and discovered the chemical formula for vitamin B6. He also discovered a method for dissolving symplexes from plants using invert soaps. He received his PhD in Munich, and went on to teach in Switzerland. 

Cationic detergents (invert soaps) form strong solid complexes with anionic silicates (e.g., montmorillonite). Depending on the concentration and sol-... 

Invert soaps do not appear in nature but are important synkinons in the preparation of artificial membrane structures. The most common application of such monolayers is a cosmetic one. For centuries people smeared fats on their hair to make it shiny, but the hair then stuck together. Invert soaps adsorb strongly to hair proteins and provide them with the elegant luster of a monolayer and the fullness of non-greasy and non-polar hair. Hair with a nonsticky hydrocarbon monolayer on the surface looks irresistibly shiny, fluffy, and clean. Combinations with polymers, such as silicones, proteins, and poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) then help to build even more body in leave-in conditioning products. 

Schwarz, H. W. (1964) Rearrangements in Polyhedric Foam, Recueil, 84, 771-781. Skogen, N. (1956) Inverted Soap Bubbles—A Surface Phenomenon, American Journal of Physics, 24, 239. 

Some quaternary ammonium salts containing a long carbon chain are invert soaps. Invert soaps differ from soaps and detergents because the polar end of the ion is positive rather than negative. As vyith soaps, the long hydrocarbon tail associates with nonpolar substances, and the polar head dissolves in water. Thus, invert soaps act by the same cleansing mechanism described in Section 20.5 for soaps and detergents. 

Invert soaps are widely used in hospitals, but for their bactericidal properties rather than their cleansing properties. They are active against bacteria, fungi, and protozoans, but they are not effective against spore-forming microorganisms. One type of invert soap is the family of benzalkonium chlorides. The alkyl groups of these compounds contain from 8 to 16 carbon atoms. These compounds are effective at concentrations of 1 750 to 1 20,000. The more complex benzethonium chloride is also an effective antiseptic. 

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