Soap and Pepper Science Experiment | Scare the Pepper Germs Away

How often do you wash your hands with soap and water? Come on, let’s be truthful! Washing your hands and maintaining hygiene is especially important during these times as you could possibly get exposed to harmful germs, when you step outside your safe zone. This simple soap and pepper science experiment that you can perform easily with a few items from your kitchen, demonstrates the importance of soap in fighting germs and keeping you healthy.

Pepper is the villain here, trying to attack you with its mild sting. Let’s see how soap can help us get rid of these pepper germs!

Materials Required

A shallow bowl or a plate
Dish soap or soap solution
Pepper powder
Water

Steps to follow

Fill water in the bowl or the plate and wait for a few second till it settles to rest.
Sprinkle the pepper powder uniformly on top of the water. So, we have our germs ready for attack!
Now, gently dip your finger in the water, and keep it there for a while.
What do you notice when you take out your finger? There are some pepper particles on your fingertip, right?
Shake it off and then dip your finger in a little bit of soap solution.
Stick your soapy finger in the water again.
Do you see the difference now? The pepper flakes have fled to the sides of the plate.

So, the soap solution was indeed powerful enough to scare the germs away! Amazing, isn’t it? Let’s explore further and see what happened in our soap and pepper science experiment.

What we learn

To begin with, you see that the pepper floats on the water surface. Pepper is hydrophobic, which means that it does not get attracted to water, and hence does not dissolve in it. Also, the fine pepper flakes are lighter than water, and so they stay afloat. You might also notice that some of the heavier flakes have sunk to the bottom of the plate.

Now, let’s get to the main point. When you touched the water without any soap on your finger, the pepper flakes did not bother to move! But, the moment your soapy finger touched the water, the pepper germs started fleeing as far as possible. So you see that soap was very effective in driving the pepper particles/germs away from your finger.

Let’s look at the science behind this. Water displays cohesion or strong forces of attraction between its molecules, which in turn contributes to its high value of surface tension. Surface tension, in simple terms, is the property of a liquid to reduce its surface area to the least possible value. The molecular properties of the soap solution reduces the surface tension of water, and the water tends to spread out from its original state. During this process the suspended pepper flakes also move to the sides of the plate.

Now let’s see how soap helps to clean dirty clothes and also your hands. The soap solution, when applied on greasy clothes, helps to break the bigger oil particles into tiny drops, which can then mix with the water. These grease and dirt particles mixed with water in turn find its way out of your clothes, making them clean and fresh.

Germs usually reach our body through our collection agents, our hands! When we touch heavily used surfaces such as door knobs, and hand rails, the germs collect on our hands and are transferred to our nose, eyes etc., if we touch them by chance. The germs usually have a protective covering of fat molecules. When you lather up soap on your hands, this outer covering is broken, and the germs are rendered helpless. They are eventually expelled along with the soapy water rinsed off your hands.

Hope you enjoyed learning something new from this soap and pepper science experiment. Now you understood how soap is effective in fighting germs. So, no more excuses when your mother asks you to wash your hands!