I have made a mistake of looking things up on google about Oxyclean and hydroxides and naturally i bumped onto some articles about bleaches.
Seems random, but there is logic:
Bleaches are weak peroxyacids which are formed from Sodium percarbonate releasing hydroxide, which reacts with a "bleach activator" molecule to form peroxyacid.
So, the next google search is naturally about Sodium percarbonate, which is the active ingredient in Oxyclean. One of the articles i read basically stated that Sodium percarbonate offers 2 benefits as a cleaning product.
1. Hydroxide it releases functions like a bleach. This reaction happens at temperatures above 60*C. Bleach activators i mentioned earlier allow bleaching action to happen at lower temperatures.
2. Na+ and CO3(-2) that it releases essentially function as degreasers. I guess that could soapify organics, so i'll buy that. But this has raised a question:
What is the result of adding Na+ to H2O? Normally when we think of soapifaction (probably butchered the spelling) it is a reaction between NaOH and the organic chain which produces the surfactants. If i were to add Na to water i'd make Na+ and OH- which then can soapify the organic chains.
What would a reaction between Na+ and H2O look like? Would H+ (instead of H) leave and i still get Na+ + OH-? In this case the capacity of soapifying organic chain would be the same as with addition of NaOH. Or would Na+ not react with water to form OH-, hence making soapifaction only done by cation of Na+, and not anion of OH-?
Looking at redox potential table Na is at -2.714V and H is at 0. So, my GUESS would be that H2O stays as is and Na+ is the only soapifying agent? But then it still would not work, since it won't be able to reduce and break off hydrogen from hydro-carbon chains to add the polar head to the chain. So, that leaves CO3(-2) as the main contender to do any kind of soapification. Can it do it?
Its 1:32am here so forgive my semi-random rambling. But when i wake up in the morning the curiosity will still be there.