A soap-making suggestion

Ben Ruekberg

Chemistry Department

51 Lower College Road

Kingston, RI 02881

Soap-making procedures for student laboratories, such as those recently published in this

journal, generally involve a filtration step. (1) Unfortunately, the reaction mixture tends to clog

the filter paper in the Buchner funnel. A plastic scrubbing sheet, Scotch-Brite or its equivalent,

may be cut to fit the bottom of the Buchner funnel and used instead of filter paper. (If two-piece

plastic Buchner funnels are used, the connecting sleeve of the top part can be used to trace a

circle of the appropriate size.) These filter pads are coarse enough to allow very rapid filtration,

fine enough to hold curdy soap and reusable. (The remainder of the sheet need not go to waste,

being very good for blocking the holes in the bottoms of flower pots, if you or a friend grow

plants.)

Literature cited

1. de Mattos, Marcio C. S.; Nicodem, David E. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 94; Phanstiel, Otto, IV;

Dueno, Eric; Wang, Queenie Xianghong J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 612.