Why is water such a great cleaner?

People have used water to clean all kinds of things for thousands of years. From tools to clothes, our bodies to stone walls, water has been our best cleaning friend.

Even the Bible talks about the cleaning power of water, Leviticus 15:12 - ...and any wooden vessel should be washed with water.

And so it goes today, if at the restaurant you get a spill on your nice new suit pants or on your favourite dress you go straight for the water and towel and try to gently dab it back to its previous dapper condition.

But you don’t need any convincing, right? all people are well aware that water is a great cleaner.

H2o

How does water clean?

Water cleans well because at the molecular level it has positive and negative ends. Like a piece of Velcro with one side having little hooks and the other side having little loops it can absorb and carry off a wide range of substances that it comes in contact with.

Hence water is affectionately known as the universal cleaner, it is a great cleaner because it:

• Dissolves other substances
  
• Can evaporate very well
  
• The water molecule has a slight negative charge near its oxygen atom and a slight positive charge near its hydrogen atoms
  
• Abundant and usually cheap
  

But... as you also know, there are substances that water has great difficulty trying to clean, like oil. Why is that?