[m.w.w]

I'm writing a research essay and my research question includes testing the effectiveness of surfactants, specifically linear alkyl benzene sulfonate, found in laundry detergents. any idea on what expirements can be conducted for this? thanks in advance

[Corribus]

Well the first thing you need to do is define what is meant by "effectiveness".

[m.w.w]

Well the first thing you need to do is define what is meant by "effectiveness".

effectiveness as in how much it contributes to making a laundry detergent work faster or more thoroughly

[mikasaur]

What ideas have you come up with? If you give us something to work with then maybe we can help making refinements.

Showing your attempts before engaging us is also one of our forum rules: http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=65859.0

[m.w.w]

Ah, my apologies. So far I have thought of picking different brands in which they have different concentrations of LAS yet similar % of all other compositions so that LAS is the only changing variable. However, I don't know if that would be very accurate.

[Corribus]

effectiveness as in how much it contributes to making a laundry detergent work faster or more thoroughly

Not intentionally trying to agitate, but this is still vague. What do you mean by "thoroughly"? To design an experiment you need to know exactly what you're trying to measure.

[m.w.w]

Okay, here is my full research question: To what extent does linear alkylbenzene sulfonate in washing powders facilitate the removal of greasy stains?
By definition, 'effective' means: "successful in producing a desired or intended result." Detergents' intended result is to wash stains, correct? My research is about how much LAS contributes to achieving that result. Now, whether it's by measuring the time taken it needs to remove a stain or how the stain looks like after a certain amount of time, that I am not sure of. This is where I need help, I am not sure of what data I should be collecting in order to answer my question, or what kind of expirement I should be conducting for that matter. .

[Corribus]

This is getting there.

Now, what you need is a way to quantify the degree of reduction in a stain - this can be an objective chemical test or even a subjective numerical score by unbiased "judges", but if the latter you need to define ahead of time the criteria for making the score and, ideally, some kind of objective metric or metrics against which the score could be determined. For example, stains are primarily visible in nature. Is there any experiment you can think of to gauge the visible impact of a stain?

You also should identify a hypothesis, specify test materials you will use, determine any important aspects of the experiment method - including the number of samples/replicates you intend to measure as well as any important controls, and decide how data will be analyzed (including any statistical methods). It is always a good idea to also think about what the limitations of your approach are before you actually do any work, as this will help you determine whether your method is adequate to test your hypothesis.