[pcm81]

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.

[chenbeier]

Na⁺ is only dissolved in water. Nothing more. Like you add NaCl to water you get Na⁺ and C^l-. The bleach and Oxycleaners already contain Na⁺ in compunds not Na metal.

[Arkcon]

Its 1:32am here so forgive my semi-random rambling. But when i wake up in the morning the curiosity will still be there.

Yes, but much of what you wrote is complete nonsense.  Its not fair to students trying to learn to have to wade through made up words, terms that you've invented, and bad conclusions.

Sopification means nothing.  Saponification, the sodium salt of a long chain organic acid is nothing like sopification, and redox potentials have no bearing on the topic.

[wildfyr]

I agree that this is borderline gibberish

[pcm81]

Its 1:32am here so forgive my semi-random rambling. But when i wake up in the morning the curiosity will still be there.

Yes, but much of what you wrote is complete nonsense.  Its not fair to students trying to learn to have to wade through made up words, terms that you've invented, and bad conclusions.

Sopification means nothing.  Saponification, the sodium salt of a long chain organic acid is nothing like sopification, and redox potentials have no bearing on the topic.

You're right. Bad miss-spelling on my part, however to be fair, both spellings are marked as wrong by firefox...

But... Saponification is not limited  to sodium. And...

Ultimately the question boils down to reaction of a base like NaOH with a a chain of organic material vs reaction of Na+ ion with the same chain. In case of a strong base the Na+ and hydroxide are there to react with organic material. In case of sodium percarbonate or some other H2O2 donor there is only Na+ or other, ion and the H2O2 which gets activated by bleach activator to yield a weak acid.

The question becomes: if Na+ ion donated by hydrogen peroxide donor is going to also participate in Saponification reaction or just chill in the mixture, while hydrogen peroxide will combine with bleach activator to produce a weak acid?

[wildfyr]

Na⁺ is whats known as a spectator ion in all of these reactions. Everything useful is being done by the anions and protons. Na⁺ is just balancing charges.