Question

A very strong student was filtering the soap that he had synthesized via a saponification reaction through a J-cloth. He found that the soap was being pushed out through the J-cloth's tiny holes. What was the student doing wrong?

Answer 1

The soap synthesized by saponification has small particle size as it is a molecular level synthesis and the material agglomerates to form larger particles. When filtering through a cloth, it is essential to allow the liquid to slowly get filtered out of the solid mass.

If too much pressure is applied during the filteration process the solid will tend to go out of the filtering cloth which has pores which are larger than the actual molecular size of the saponified soap but smaller than the agglomerated soap material.

The student was probably attempting to apply too much pressure to get the filteration to complete quickly, resulting in the soap coming out of the cloth.