From the greek meaning 'both' (something like amphi) and 'lover' (something like philos). An amphiphile is a molecule that has a strong attraction towards both polar solvents (like a hydrophile) and non-polar solvents (like a hydrophobe) and will end up concentrated at the interface between the two.

A saponification reaction is the reverse of the esterification reaction. The term "saponification" is normally only used in the context of the making of soaps from the reaction.

'Zwitter' is german for 'hybrid', and zwitterions are chemical species that manage to be both cations and anions at the same time. How can this come about? Consider ammonium acetate (NH4CH3COO). It is a perfectly ordinary salt, and when dissolved in water splits into its two constituent ions, NH4+ and CH3COO-. These ions will be [..]

A compound containing a metal-carbon bond that can be used to make highly ordered, high density polymers by a chain-growth mechanism. A typical Ziegler-Natta catalyst is the compound formed in situ between titanium trichloride and diethylaluminium chloride, picture below: These catalysts are named after two famous polymer chemists named, strangely [..]

A class of minerals that are 'hydrated aluminosilicates'. An aluminosilicate is where some of the Si atoms in silica (which has the perfectly reasonable chemical formula SiO4) are replaced with aluminium, giving an excess negative charge. 'hydrated' means that water is strongly associated with these materials by hydrogen bonding [..]

The non-systematic name for dimethylbenzene, like so:

Any fatty substance that is a relatively hard, brittle, and non-greasy at room temperature. Most waxes, whether derived from mineral, vegerable, or animal sources, are a mixture of relatively high molecular weight (more than thirty carbons) hydrocarbons, esters, alcohols, and carboxylic acids.

A common monomer used to make chain-growth polymers. vinyl acetate

Actually not a member of OPEC. If anyone says it is you will know that they stole their information from us before we added this disclaimer.

Attractive forces acting between uncharged molecules. There are three kinds: (1) Dipole-dipole forces (2) Dipole-induced dipole forces (3) Dispersion Forces. Named after Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837-1923).