dumb interesting observation

[moosepotatoes]

dumb interesting observation.....shisha, the sticky gross slimey mess that it is, washes off easily with just plain water, you dont even need soap....interesting eh guys? :shock:

[Joseph]

Well, thats probably because most of that stick stuff is glycerol, which is miscible in water. It seems like any flavorings must be able to be dissolved in glycerol, so they will also be miscible in water, so no need for soap to wash it off.

[HAHkoo]

wetnaps are your friend

[Lukasa]

Thanks for sharing that. Now that I think of it, water DOES wash things.

[EvansLight]

umm i didnt know that anyone really used soap to wash it off, crap a wet napkin is good enough, hell if your desprate some spit and your jeans works well too XD

[PersianPride]

[quote name='Joseph']Well, thats probably because most of that stick stuff is glycerol, which is miscible in water.  It seems like any flavorings must be able to be dissolved in glycerol, so they will also be miscible in water, so no need for soap to wash it off.[/quote]

But glycerol is a lipid based molecule and is hydrophobic (i.e doesn't dissolve in water) so why does it wash off? Curious

[Joseph]

Glycerol is a polar molecule due to its three hydroxyl groups, so it is hydrophillic and miscible. When it has one or more fatty acyl groups attached to it with an ester linkage, it will have a polar and a nonpolar domain. This nonpolar region prevents it from going into solution. So anyways, glycerol is not "lipid based" but it does form the base for one type of lipid.

[PersianPride]

[quote name='Joseph']Glycerol is a polar molecule due to its three hydroxyl groups, so it is hydrophillic and miscible.  When it has one or more fatty acyl groups attached to it with an ester linkage, it will have a polar and a nonpolar domain.  This nonpolar region prevents it from going into solution.  So anyways, glycerol is not "lipid based" but it does form the base for one type of lipid.[/quote]

Yeah sorry my bad I had a complete brain freeze and has thinking of triglyceride. Your right glycerol is very much hydrophilic

[John Wayne Bandit]

one weird thing i noticed while working at a hookah bar is that if you dip your fingers in water before sticking them into the tobacco that it won't stick to your hands almost at all... just an interesting observation...

[Sonthert]

[quote name='Joseph']Glycerol is a polar molecule due to its three hydroxyl groups, so it is hydrophillic and miscible.  When it has one or more fatty acyl groups attached to it with an ester linkage, it will have a polar and a nonpolar domain.  This nonpolar region prevents it from going into solution.  So anyways, glycerol is not "lipid based" but it does form the base for one type of lipid.[/quote]

I'm not convinced that glycerine/glycerol is polar...I don't think that alot of textbooks would necessarily agree with you, either...there's alot more to polarity that substituent groups. Water, itself, isn't polar in supercritical phase. It acts like a non-polar substance. Ammonia, otherwise identical to water, except replacing the oxygen with the next door neighbor, nitrogen and ammonia is most definitely not polar. Just because the structure as depicted in books has three hydroxide groups on one side and three hydrogens on the other doesn't mean thats how the stuff is...they can alternate...remember that fats, which are not soluble in water, have the same general structure (although longer) as gylcerine. Ethanol is miscible with water, and it is not polar...more to the point it forms azeotropes which are inseparable.

Additionally, there are components of hookah tobacco that are not soluble in water...otherwise we'd never need a brush to clean the hookah...it would just wash away.

[Joseph]

Ethanol is polar, the O-H bond is a polar bond, so all achohols, including glycerol are polar. And water may not be polar in supercritical phase, but its polar the rest of the time.
lipids are amphipathic, so they have a hydrophilic region, which is the glycerol molecule in triglycerides, and a hydrophobic region, which is the carbon tail.

[moosepotatoes]

I dont give a shit really if it was polar or not, lol. I was just mentioning that as opposed to other sticky things, u need soap.


Stop showing off

[Sonthert]

Rereading my post, after writing it in haste, and chopped it up in haste I would like to clarify some things that are absolutely wrong that I stated...I was mentioning hydrogen bonding and I erased it...ammonia doesn't hydrogen bond. It is polar. Ethanol is polar. I wrote it was not. Sorry. You are talking about the polarity of a molecule, not a specific bond. OH is indeed a polar bond. So is ethylene glycol polar? Many things vary between a slight polarity to considerable. Sometimes one specific molecule might be polar while anothe one is not, making it only weakly polar. Not very much...the as published structure of glycerine has all three hydroxides on one side...it might be weakly polar, but it doesn't matter solubility in water and polarity vary. Since it is three, there is no way to nullify each hydroxide, unlike ethylene glycol, but it is not anywhere near as polar as HCl or H2O. Also, we would have to look at the real geometry, since bond angles vary (whic adds to the polarity of the water molecule)...you can't necessarily look at a linear diagram and determine the polarity of a molecule...What if I wrote that the linear forumla of water was H-O-H....you conclude it was non-polar. Since the bonds are force into a tetrahedralformation, the hydrogens look like Mickey Mouse Ears on the relatively massive Oxygen...making it polar.Sorry, I wrote this real quickly, too.

[Joseph]

I love talking about science, so this conversation is really making my day

HCL is ionic, not polar, so it completely dissociates in water. What makes glycerol miscible in water is because it has many opputunities for hydrogen bonding with H2O molecules, and glycerol is 100% miscible in water, so it must be polar.