Household Cleaners - Lab Report Example

Rub the hand with the cleaning agent for 18 seconds according to step 2.6. Wash off the cleaning agent with 400ml of distilled water respectively.7. Dried off with a kitchen cleaning paper.8. Swab subject's left palm. The area of swabbing should be around 5x5 cm (square in shape).9. Repeat with subject's right palm using a new swab.10. Follow the steps as in the graphic (Merck, 2007) and measure the relative light unit by using the luminometer. 11. Record the reading on the luminometer.

ResultThe purpose of the experiment is to determine the most effective agent to clean off germs on hand. Results collected will be tabulated as in table 1. Average and standard deviation are determined.Table 1: Tabulation of result.Cleaning AgentSubjectHandwash shampooDetergentDish Cleaning LiquidLemon juice1LeftRight2LeftRight3LeftRight4LeftRight5LeftRight6LeftRight7LeftRight8LeftRight9LeftRight10LeftRightAverageStandard DeviationThen, the average RLU value of this will be plotted on graph as followed (figure 1).

The higher relative light units reflect a higher bacteria count on the hands. The almost linear relationship between the relative light units and the total number of counts were proven by Merck (2007). Figure 1: Relative Light Units on hands after washing hands with different cleaning agents.The lemon juice might be the least effective cleaning agents among all cleaning agents. That is because it does not contain any antibacterial properties. But for handwashing shampoo, detergent and dish cleaning liquid, they contain -hydroxy-2',4,4'-trichlorodiphenyl ether (commercially known as triclosan), a common.

This compound inhibits fatty acid synthesis in bacteria, thus preventing the reproduction of the bacteria. Fatty acids are needed in the synthesis of bacteria cell membranes. In conclusions, the result is estimated to refute with the hypothesis. Lemon juice is the least effective cleaning agent during handwash. The most effective would be detergent. This is due to the concentration of the active antibacterial compound in the cleaning agent. Lemon juice does not contain any antibacterial compound.

It just bring down the pH of the surface and suppress growth of bacteria but do not kill them. Meantime, the RLU values would give a reliable result on the effectiveness of the cleaning agent. Other than using a luminometer, another way would be to determine the number of bacterial growth by microbiological plating method. This methodology however would take more than one day time to obtain the result. The advantage over a luminometer is that it can identify the type of microorganisms found on the hand after washing.

This can be done by biochemically testing the colonies grown on the agar plates. Anyhow, the design of this experiment does not reflect the effectiveness of all types of similar products. It only gives a general idea.