Soap
Souffl​é

 
 

Table of Contents:
▪ 1​st​ page: Summary, Statement of purpose,
Problem and answer
▪ 2​nd​ page: Questions, Hypothesis,
Materials, Procedure
▪ 3​rd​ page: Data, Pictures
▪ 4​th​ page: Results, Conclusion, future
experiment plans
▪ 5​th​ page: What is the Charles Law Effect
▪ 6​th ​page: (Continue) What is the Charles
Law Effect
▪ 7​th ​page: The purpose of a Charles law
effect and its concept
▪ 8​th​ page: (Continue) The purpose of a
Charles law effect and its concept

 
 

▪ 9​th ​ page: Appendices

▪ 10​th​ page: Appendices
▪ 11​th​ page: Bibliography
Summary:

▪ Our project or experiment that is entitled Soap Souffl​é ​basically talks about or explains
about The Charles Law Effect. This experiment is a basic and simple way of showing the
Charles law effect. The purpose of this experiment is for other students to understand
much better what The Charles Law effect is and its purpose. We think that the soap
expands because of how the volume of the bar soap changes because heat is included in
this experiment. We​’​ll be basically microwaving five different kinds of soap and compare
it from before they were microwaved both by sized and weight. It came to our
understandings in the end of this experiment that it does expand because of the change of
the volume of the bar soap. ​ ​Increasing the temperature of a volume of gas causes
individual gas molecules to move faster. As the molecules move faster, they encounter
the walls of the container more often and with more force.

Statement of Purpose:

▪ The purpose of us doing this experiment is for us to understand what the Charles Law
effect is. After us understanding what The Charles law effect is we also wanted other
students to learn about the Charles law effect and to understand its purpose. We believe
that this is useful information since it​’​s practically used in a lot of daily activities, but not
recognised. Also since this is a simple and basic experiment it will be easier to
understand the Charles law effect and do it at home. Another purpose of this experiment
would be to let other students learn more about volume and the properties of soap. Also
one of the purposes of this experiment is that we wanted to know if the soap will expand
or rise like how a popcorn pops in the microwave and what happens when we microwave
soaps.

Answer: (EDIT)

▪ We wanted to know what happens to soap if placed and cooked in the

microwave. We wanted to know if the soap will actually rise, burn or even

 
 

melt. We were curious on how the Charles law effect actually works and
when we saw this experiment we were more curious on what will happen to
the soap. Since what we thought was that the soap will either melt or burn,
we were shocked to say that it turned into a bubble or a souffl​é ​as we call it.

Problem:

After watching a video about the soap souffl​é​, we were amazed, and was wondering ​“​How did it
happen?​”

Questions:

• How does the bar soap turn into a souffl​é​?

• How does it change physically? Chemically?

• Why does the soap expand in the microwave?

(NEEDS EDIT)Hypothesis:

• We think the bar soap turns into a souffl​é ​when it rises or expands to a
much bigger bar soap since a souffl​é ​is a dessert that

• The bar soap changes physically when it expands and gets bigger.
Chemically we think it has something to do with the volume of the bar
soap since it involves heat.

• We think how a soap expands in the microwave is because of the heat

that comes from the microwave.
Experiment:

1. Materials

• 5 different kinds of bar soap

• Microwave

 
 

• Stop watch

• A bowl of water

• Kitchen towel or small plate

2. Procedure

• Get 5 different kinds of bar soaps

▪ Silka

▪ Ivory

▪ Dove

▪ Safeguard

▪ Bioderm

▪ (Or any others you prefer to use. But make sure it​’​s different)

o Measure each bar of soap before putting it in the microwave

o Measure how much each bar soap weighs at the beginning

o Dip each bar of soap in the bowl of water

o Then cut each bar of soap to four pieces

o Put each bar of soap that​’​s cut into four pieces inside the microwave (you can use
a kitchen towel or a small plate for a base)

o Get your timer started

o Put each bar soap one by one and set the microwave for two minutes each.

o Observe closely and take notes every 30 seconds on how much it rises

o Use the timer to see how fast the soap expands

o After the experiment is done measure how much it expands by using a ruler

o Measure how much it weighs with a weighing machine.

o Compare the data after it went in the microwave, and before microwave.

 
 

Data:

Soap Weight Before Weight after Size before Size after

(Width) (Width)
Silka 65 grams 22 grams 3 inches 15.7 inches
6 CM
Ivory 90 grams 17 grams 4 inches 20.3 inches
7 CM
Dove 89.3 grams 34 grams 3.5 inches 16.5 inches
3.15 OZ 6.5 CM
Safeguard 113 grams 19 grams 3.5 inches 16.3 inches
4.0 OZ 6.5 CM
Bioderm 135 grams 26 grams 3 inches 15.8 inches
6 CM
Total 492.3 grams 118 grams 17 inches 84.6 inches

Pictures:

Results:

Our results in this experiment were very successful; every step went out great we followed
each one and it came out successful. The soap bar successfully expanded and grew out of its
normal size. The weight and size changed by a far margin. The weight got lighter even though if
the size got bigger. An example would be the size of the silka bar soap, its size before it was
microwaved was 3 inches wide but after we placed it in the microwave and cooked it, its size
changed to 15.7 inches wide. The weight of the silka bar soap also changed. The weight before it

 
 

was placed in the microwave is 65 grams. After we removed it from the microwave its weight
changed and went down to only 22 grams left. What we notice was that all the bar soap
expanded or changed by five times the original size or actually more. All five bar soaps has
successfully risen and expanded. There were no complications in the whole experiment.

Conclusions:

▪ How does the soap expand in the microwave? This is actually very similar to what
happens when popcorn pops or when you try to microwave a marshmallow. Those air
bubbles in the soap (or the popcorn kernels or the marshmallow) contain water. Water is
also caught up in the matrix of the soap itself. The expanding effect is caused when the
water is heated by the microwave. The water vaporizes, forming bubbles, and the heat
causes trapped air to expand. Likewise, the heat causes the soap itself to soften and
become pliable. This effect is actually a demonstration of Charles' Law. Charles' Law
states that as the temperature of a gas increases, so does its volume. When the soap is
heated, the molecules of air in the soap move quickly, causing them to move far away
from each other. This causes the soap to puff up and expand to an enormous size. Other
brands of soap without whipped air tend to heat up and melt in the microwave.

▪ Our hypothesis was actually correct since it did expand or rise because of how the
volume of the bar soap changed.

Future experiment plans:

▪ While finishing this project we thought about adding food colouring in the bar soap to
have a more colourful and interesting showcase. We thought about this since we saw
that the soap could absorb water easily and thought, ​“​Why not food colouring?​”​ So after
we finished our experiment we thought about adding different kinds of food colours to
make it look more interesting and fun.

 
 

My version (Charles Law):

Charles law is the relation between pressure, volume, and temperature in a fixed mass. When a
molecule encounters another molecule or a wall, it bounces off. Then, both the molecule and the
wall will experience force. Containers such as balloons or air bubbles used in our experiment, are
inflated or grown in size as the molecules keep bouncing off each others and the flexible wall.
When molecules are heated, they move faster. This means the molecules inside the container will
move faster, and give more force. This way, the container​’​s size increases faster, and can grow
even larger.

Bibliography:

▪ http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Gas_laws_(Thermodynamics).aspx

 
 

▪ http://scienceprimer.com/charles-law#_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C
_open%2C_resizeMe%2C_renderstart%2Concircled%2Cdrefresh%2Cerefresh&id=I0_1
429791757702&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fscienceprimer.com&pfname=&rpctoken=912
24052

▪ http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/physics-terms/charles-law-info.htm

▪ www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/kt/otherlaws.html

▪ chemwiki.ucdavis.edu ​› ​... ​› ​Gases ​› ​The Ideal Gas Law

▪ www.physchem.co.za/OB11-mat/kinetic3.htm

▪ Google.com

▪ Youtube.com

▪ www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experiments/soap-souffle