Chemistry in Everyday Life

Chemical reactions cause the changes we observe around the world. Chemistry is not limited to beakers and laboratories. It is all around us, and the better we know chemistry, the better we know our world. Chemistry is present in every aspect of life, and few examples are given below

• Caffeine: The presence of the chemical called adenosine coffee, keeps our brain awake. It binds to certain receptors and slows the nerve cell activity when sleep is signaled

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• Human Body: Your body is made up of chemical compounds, which are combinations of elements. The human body is mostly water, which is hydrogen and oxygen.

• Teary Eyes: Onions make you cry due to the presence of sulfur in the cells which break after the onions are cut. This sulfur gets mixed with moisture and thus irritates your eyes.

• Ice In Water: Chemistry holds the explanation for why ice floats, while most substances sink when they freeze. Ice is less dense than liquid water. The heavier water displaces the lighter ice, so ice floats on top.

• The protection from the sun: Sunscreen uses chemistry to filter or block the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays to protect you from a sunburn, skin cancer, or both.  Sunscreen combines organic and inorganic chemicals to filter the light from the sun so that less of it reaches the deeper layers of your skin. The reflective particles in sunscreen usually consist of zinc oxide or titanium oxide.

• Vegetables are colored- Many vegetables and fruits are strongly colored because they contain a special kind of chemical compound named carotenoids. These compounds have an area called chromophore, which absorbs and gives off particular wavelengths of light, generating the color that we then perceive.

• Cook faster in a pressure cooker: A pressure cooker has a more elaborated lid that seals the pot completely. When we heat water it boils and the steam cannot escape, so it remains inside and starts to build up pressure. Under pressure, cooking temperatures raise much higher than under normal conditions, hence the food is cooked much faster.

• The Cleansing Agent: Soap is formed by molecules with a ‘head’ which likes water (hydrophilic) and a long chain that hates it (hydrophobic). Then when soap is added to the water, the long hydrophobic chains of its molecules join the oil particles, while the hydrophilic heads go into the water. An emulsion of oil in water is then formed, this means that the oil particles become suspended in the water and are liberated from the cloth. With the rinsing, the emulsion is taken away.