Why Deep Freezing Removes Chewing Gum From Clothes

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Hello steemians! Last week I talked about why sprite clean glass well , this week's focus is on the reason why freezing helps in removing chewing gum stuck on clothes.

I was actually interested in the chemistry behind it as usual, but I would not bore you much with it still. Just the basics.

Chewing gum is a type of soft substance or better still a gum designed to be chewed without being swallowed.

There are four basic ingredients of chewing gum, they are: gum base , softeners, sweeteners and flavorings.

I would concern myself mainly on the gum base. When chewing gum first originated, it was made from latex sap (called chicle) or other saps gotten from tress. Which shows natural rubber was used.

Rubber is a natural polymer, it turns out to be relatively tedious in converting it to chewing gum. Around 1900, chemist found out a way to synthesize rubber.

Synthetic rubber replaced the natural rubber in the making of chewing gum. So majority of gums are made from synthetic rubber or a mixture of both artificial and natural bases.

The point here is to make you aware that the gum base for chewing gum is synthetic rubber which is a polymer.

It is the chemical bonds between the molecules in a polymer (gum base) chewing gum that makes it difficult to remove from a surface.

Polymers are long chains of covalently bonded molecules, this gives gum elasticity which makes it 'chewable'(if there is a word like that). The bonds between the repeating units of the gum base(polymer) remain intact as it lengthens and contract while been chewed on.

Saliva heats the chewing gum. And during the process of grinding teeth, the gum becomes tougher and less elastic. And after the gum is removed from the mouth and placed in a cooler environment, the decrease in temperature causes the polymer chain to freeze, resulting to it getting stuck on clothes.

This is where freezing comes in to remove the stains.

Gum bases are hydrophobic that is they repel water and attract oil. During the process of freezing, the ability of the
hydrophobic polymer to attract oil is been reduced.

Therefore is stops the gum being stuck to the cloth, which also makes it easy to be scraped off.

If not done while the temperature is very low, it warms up and reattaches itself to the cloth.

So, stickiness of chewing gum is due to the hydrophobic gum bases and its weakness is been exploited by freezing.

Thanks for stopping, I am @heeyahnuh!

Keep steeming!

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