[deff]

Hi,

I am doing a research project on how listerine kills bacteria for my intro to chemistr class, ad I cant find th answer to this after hours of searching

From reearch , Ive found that Cell walls have an overall negative charge, and thus an anticeptic should kill the cell by attracting to the negative cell wall and killing the cell.  This means that the anticeptic should be positivley charged.  BUT, in listerine, all the snticeptics seem to have nore negative charge...or at least they all consist of a benzene ring and an OH or O attatched somewhere.  Some also have CH3's attatched to the ring.

The 4 active ingreedients are Menthol, Thymol, Eucalyptol, and Methyl salicylate. 

I dont see how these 4 molecules kill cell walls if they all have OH and O's attatched to them, which would make them more negative...But they are suposed to be positive to attract to cell walls.

Im out of places to search, Id apreciate assistance!

Thanks!

[Arkcon]

A quick check on wikipedia suggests that thymol is the only active ingredient in Listerine, the others are cleaning agents, flavors(?!) and the ethanol is simply a solvent.  Thymol is one molecule of a class of molecules called phenols - aromatic alcohols, and many phenols are antimicrobial.  I'm sad to say I don't know the exact method of action, but in pure form, they tend to be damaging to all tissue.