 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2024) |
| Product type | Toy |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Jamm Company |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 2009 |
Zubbles is a commercial name for colored soap bubbles.
Popular Science named Zubbles the "Innovation of the Year" for 2005. Reader's Digest agreed, saying they were one of the "Best Innovations" of the year in 2006. [1]
Zubbles were invented by Tim Kehoe, a toy creator from St. Paul, Minnesota. [2] After an unexplained breakthrough in his kitchen, he was able to produce blue bubbles, that, unsuitably for a toy, stained clothing. After an eight-year-long delay in developing the idea further, he recommenced his investigations after forming a new toy company.
In the process of trying to rediscover the recipe, he changed the formula, making the coloring water-soluble. However, having to wash off the color from the bubbles rendered them unsuited to a mass-market toy. Kehoe hired the dye chemist Ram Sabnis, who arrived at a formula where the color would disappear on its own, with sufficient exposure to air, and without washing or staining.
The company entered into a global license agreement with Spin Master Ltd. for Zubbles Colored Bubbles in December 2005. Despite announcements of expected release dates, Spin Master dropped plans for commercial production due to complexities in the manufacturing process. [3]
In 2008, the company reached a licensing agreement with a new toy company called Jamm Company. Zubbles commenced commercial sales in June 2009. [4]
In 2011, Crayola disputed the patent given to Kehoe/C2C Technologies in a lawsuit which claimed that colored bubbles should be in the public domain. [5]
Kehoe died unexpectedly at the age of 43 in 2014. [5]
The colored bubble solution uses special dyes called leuco dyes. For instance, the purple bubble uses a chemical called crystal violet lactone. After the bubble pops, the colored splatter disappears with friction, water or exposure to air.
In a normal soap bubble, surfactants reduce the surface tension of the water and allow the bubble to form. To create a colored bubble, dye molecules must bond to the surfactants. Each dye molecule in Zubbles is a structure known as a lactone ring. When the ring is closed, the molecule absorbs all visible light except for the color of the bubble. However, subjecting the lactone ring to air, water, or pressure causes the ring to open. This changes the molecule's structure to a straight chain which absorbs no visible light.
Lactone rings can be produced whenever a long chain molecule contains acid functionality on one end, and alcohol functionality at the other. The two ends of the molecule react in a condensation reaction, ejecting a water molecule. To drive the reaction back towards the long chain, pressure, heat or an excess of water must be added.
A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber.
A detergent is a surfactant or a mixture of surfactants with cleansing properties when in dilute solutions. There are a large variety of detergents, a common family being the alkylbenzene sulfonates, which are soap-like compounds that are more soluble in hard water, because the polar sulfonate is less likely than the polar carboxylate to bind to calcium and other ions found in hard water.
Surfactants are chemical compounds that decrease the surface tension or interfacial tension between two liquids, a liquid and a gas, or a liquid and a solid. The word "surfactant" is a blend of surface-active agent, coined in 1950. As they consist of a water-repellent and a water-attracting part, they enable water and oil to mix; they can form foam and facilitate the detachment of dirt.
A soap bubble is an extremely thin film of soap or detergent and water enclosing air that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact with another object. They are often used for children's enjoyment, but they are also used in artistic performances. Assembling many bubbles results in foam.
Malachite green is an organic compound that is used as a dyestuff and controversially as an antimicrobial in aquaculture. Malachite green is traditionally used as a dye for materials such as silk, leather, and paper. Despite its name the dye is not prepared from the mineral malachite; the name just comes from the similarity of color.
Hypercolor was a line of clothing, mainly T-shirts and shorts, that changed color with heat.
Thermochromism is the property of substances to change color due to a change in temperature. A mood ring is an excellent example of this phenomenon, but thermochromism also has more practical uses, such as baby bottles which change to a different color when cool enough to drink, or kettles which change color when water is at or near boiling point. Thermochromism is one of several types of chromism.
Wood stain "Rosewood color" is a type of paint used to colour wood comprising colourants dissolved and/or suspended in a vehicle or solvent. Pigments and/or dyes are largely used as colourants in most stains.
Laundry detergent is a type of detergent used for cleaning dirty laundry (clothes). Laundry detergent is manufactured in powder and liquid form.
A leuco dye is a dye which can switch between two chemical forms, one of which is colorless. Reversible transformations can be caused by heat, light or pH, resulting in examples of thermochromism, photochromism and halochromism, respectively. Irreversible transformations typically involve reduction or oxidation. The colorless form is sometimes referred to as the leuco form.
In chemistry, an amphiphile, or amphipath, is a chemical compound possessing both hydrophilic and lipophilic properties. Such a compound is called amphiphilic or amphipathic. Amphiphilic compounds include surfactants and detergents. The phospholipid amphiphiles are the major structural component of cell membranes.
Photodegradation is the alteration of materials by light. Commonly, the term is used loosely to refer to the combined action of sunlight and air, which cause oxidation and hydrolysis. Often photodegradation is intentionally avoided, since it destroys paintings and other artifacts. It is, however, partly responsible for remineralization of biomass and is used intentionally in some disinfection technologies. Photodegradation does not apply to how materials may be aged or degraded via infrared light or heat, but does include degradation in all of the ultraviolet light wavebands.
Dishwashing liquid, also known as dishwashing soap, dish detergent, or dish soap, is a detergent used in dishwashing. Dishwashing detergent for dishwashers comes in various forms such as cartridges, gels, liquids, packs, powder, and tablets. It is usually a highly-foamy mixture of surfactants with low skin irritation that consumers primarily use for washing glasses, plates, cutleries, and cooking utensils. In addition to its primary use, dishwashing liquid is also used for various informal applications, like creating bubbles, clothes washing, and cleaning birds affected by oil spills.
Carpet cleaning is performed to remove stains, dirt, debris, and allergens from carpets. Common methods include hot water extraction, dry-cleaning, and vacuuming.
Shower gel is a specialized liquid product used for cleaning the body during showers. Not to be confused with liquid soaps, shower gels, in fact, do not contain saponified oil. Instead, it uses synthetic detergents derived from either petroleum or plant sources.
Tim Kehoe was an author and toy inventor from St. Paul, Minnesota. He invented numerous toys, and was perhaps best known for inventing non-staining colored bubbles, Zubbles. Zubbles took more than 14 years to develop and incorporated a great deal of research in various fields, including chemistry and the science of dyeing. Kehoe died unexpectedly at the age of 43 in 2014.
Stain removal is the process of removing a mark or spot left by one substance on a specific surface like a fabric. A solvent or detergent is generally used to conduct stain removal and many of these are available over the counter.
The Larami Corporation was a toy company established by David W. Ring in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1959. It produced licensed toys based on movies and television shows. Often low-quality, these were manufactured in Hong Kong and Japan for sale on grocery store toy aisle racks for under a dollar.
An electrophoretic color marker is a chemical used to monitor the progress of agarose gel electrophoresis and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (PAGE) since DNA, RNA, and most proteins are colourless. The color markers are made up of a mixture of dyes that migrate through the gel matrix alongside the sample of interest. They are typically designed to have different mobilities from the sample components and to generate colored bands that can be used to assess the migration and separation of sample components.
Alcian blue is any member of a family of polyvalent basic dyes, of which the Alcian blue 8G has been historically the most common and the most reliable member. It is used to stain acidic polysaccharides such as glycosaminoglycans in cartilages and other body structures, some types of mucopolysaccharides, sialylated glycocalyx of cells etc. For many of these targets it is one of the most widely used cationic dyes for both light and electron microscopy. Use of alcian blue has historically been a popular staining method in histology especially for light microscopy in paraffin embedded sections and in semithin resin sections. The tissue parts that specifically stain by this dye become blue to bluish-green after staining and are called "Alcianophilic". Alcian blue staining can be combined with H&E staining, PAS staining and van Gieson staining methods. Alcian blue can be used to quantitate acidic glycans both in microspectrophotometric quantitation in solution or for staining glycoproteins in polyacrylamide gels or on western blots. Biochemists had used it to assay acid polysaccharides in urine since the 1960s for diagnosis of diseases like mucopolysaccharidosis but from 1970's, partly due to lack of availability of Alcian and partly due to length and tediousness of the procedure, alternative methods had to be developed e.g. Dimethyl methylene blue method.