Laundry Detergent Lab

 

Aim: The aim is to compare 4 different detergents to find which detergent works the best at washing a mustard stained piece of cloth.

 

Hypothesis: Will the detergent that costs $5 dollars more (Woolite) wash out the stain better than the popular detergents (Sunlight & Tide) and the cheap detergent (Ultra), or will the $5 more detergent be a rip off?

 

Prediction:  I predict that the Woolite, Sunlight, and Tide detergents will be equal. The Ultra detergent on the other hand will not be as effective towards the stained cloth.

 

Materials:

5 beakers

1 graduated cylinder

5 stirring sticks

White cloth

Mustard

Scissors

4 different detergents (Woolite, Tide, Sunshine, Ultra)

Thumbtacks

Water

 

Procedure:

1. Take a white cloth and smear the entire cloth evenly with mustard. Let the mustard dry.
2. Cut up the stained cloth into 5 pieces. This makes sure that the fabric is the same between the 5 pieces.
3. Take 5 beakers and label them Woolite, Tide, Sunlight, Ultra, and water.
4. Pour 250mL of water into each of the 5 beakers. Put a stir stick in each.
5. Put 5 drops of the corresponding detergent into the Woolite, Sunlight, Tide and Ultra beakers, leaving the beaker labelled water with no detergent.
6. Place the cloths into each of the beakers and stir the cloths 30 times, making sure the speed and time of stirring is equal in each. Then let the cloths soak in the water for 5 minutes. Stir 30 more times and let sit for another 5 minutes.
7. Go to the sink and rinse each cloth in water for 20 seconds. Ring out the cloths and pin them to the wall for them to dry.

 

Observations:

• After we stirred the cloths for the second time, the water seemed to get a lot more soapy and yellow in all 5 beakers.
• After we took out the cloths and rinsed them out, we looked at the water in the beakers and saw that the water in Ultra and “Water” seemed to be cleaner. The water in Tide and Woolite seemed the most yellow.
• Tide and sunlight removed the stain the best. But sunlight was the best.
• Ultra slightly lightened the stain
• Water also lightened stain. More so the mustard that was dried onto the surface, not the actual stain
• Woolite did better than water and ultra but not Tide and sunlight
• Sunlight washed the stain out the best

Conclusions:

In conclusion I do not believe that woolite is worth the extra 5 Dollars. It costs more than all the other detergents but it only performed better than ultra. Therefore I think buying the Sunlight detergent is the best deal.

Questions:

Would the results have been different if we used a different method to stain the cloths? Eg. Ketchup, food colouring, etc. What would’ve happened if we used a washing machine?