COMPARING ANTIBACTERIAL TO REGULAR

HAND SOAP
A relatively new development into hygiene products has been the Isla Stone
introduction of antibacterial elements (biocides) into domestic
toiletries. The biocides used are often broad-spectrum antibacterial
METHOD:
agents, the most common of which is the active ingredient known as
Triclosan (C 12 H 7 Cl 3 O 2 ), a phenoxyphenol antimicrobial. Triclosan An important aspect of this experiment is that it is done under sterile conditions, this involves wearing gloves and spraying down the
works by blocking the active site of, and therefore inhibiting, the ENR desk before and after use. With this in mind all of my equipment and the distilled water was sterilised before use.
enzyme essential in fatty acid synthesis in bacteria. This prevents
fatty acid being made which is necessary for building bacterial cell I used agar plates which had already been treated with [Link] strain K12 and quartered them, labelling each quarter as shown. I then
membranes and cellular reproduction1. submerged filter-paper disks in each soap, water, and a 1/5 dilution of each soap and placed them in the corresponding quarter, leaving
them overnight in an incubator. I then measured the diameter of the clear ring around each disk where bacterial growth had been
Since humans do not have this ENR enzyme, triclosan is deemed to inhibited.
be fairly harmless to people, however recent evidence suggests it
may promote the formation of resistant strands of Bacteria by The diameter (mm) around the filter paper at each
accelerate the natural selection process2, and potentially kill the Type of soap:
CONCLUSIONS:
Serial dilution:
helpful bacteria on the skin surface that competes with harmful 1 1/5 I conducted a student t test on my results and found that, when
bacteria. Considering these potential drawbacks, I would like to Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3 Plate 1 Plate 2 Plate 3
compared to the tables with 14 degrees of freedom at a 10%
investigate whether antibacterial hand wash makes a significant R R R R R R2 R1 R2 R R2 R1 R2
1 2 1 2 1 1 significance level, my value was less (1.6777 < 1.76). Therefore, I
enough improvement on normal hand soap to justify its use in (Above) a diagram
Antibacterial 1 9 1 9 1 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 can conclude that my experiment supports my hypothesis that the
a domestic setting. showing the molecular
0 0 1 two soaps are not significantly different.
formula of triclosan Non- 8 1 9 1 1 9 0 0 0 0 0 0
HYPOTHESIS: antibacterial 0 1 0 The basic conclusion to my experiment is that both soaps are only
Distilled 0 0 0 0 0 0 effective at high concentrations and there is no significant
In my experiment, I will be comparing the performance of normal hand soap to water
difference between the performance of each. Although
(control)
antibacterial hand soap at full concentrations as well as at various serial dilutions to antibacterial hand soap may have been more consistent in killing
represent typical conditions of hand washing. I hypothesise that, using the T test method I bacteria, as shown by having a lower standard deviation from the
will find that the means of the two groups are not statistically different from each other. mean, both had practically identical results in terms of means and
the student t test showed there was no significant difference
Regular soap works because it is made up of polar molecules3 that position themselves
between their performance.
around droplets of oil (with hydrophilic elements pointing outward and hydrophobic
inward) forming a suspension solution. Once the dirt and microbes are lifted off the hand I therefore conclude that my experiment supports my hypothesis
surface they are washed away by the flow of water. Although it doesn’t contain that antibacterial hand wash is not necessary for domestic use.
antibacterial chemicals that kill the bacteria, regular soap is still effective at removing
germs, and I believe that any added benefit of the biocides is insignificant on a domestic
(Left) a graph showing a comparison of
level. Although for hospitals, where there are high levels of bacteria, it may be justified to
the mean diameters of inhibited bacterial FURTHER RESEARCH:
use antibacterial hand soap, I believe that in homes there will be no significant difference
growth between two soaps, with standard
that justifies the potential risk and added cost brought with the use of antibacterial hand A major limitation to my experiment was the fact that I only tested the
deviation error bars.
wash. effectiveness of each soap on one type of bacteria – [Link] K12 strain. It
would be inaccurate to make assumptions about the soaps effectiveness
on one type of bacteria alone since the average human hand would
Citations: contain a variety of bacteria. Therefore I propose the next step is testing
each soap on different strains of bacteria to see if either is more effective
1. Luby, S., Agboatwalla, M., Schnell, B.M., Hoekstra, R.M., Rahbar, M.H. and Keswick, B.H., 2002. The effect of antibacterial soap on impetigo incidence, Karachi, Pakistan. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 67(4), pp.430-435.
2. Aiello, A.E., Larson, E.L. and Levy, S.B., 2007. Consumer antibacterial soaps: effective or just risky?. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 45(Supplement 2), pp.S137-S147.
against certain, maybe more harmful, strains compared to the other.
3. Locke, Jo, and Paul Bircher. A Level Biology for OCR. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.