Fight Club

Tyler’s soapy recipe for mass destruction

By Emmanuel D. Delocado

 

 

Being one of the most controversial movies of the last century, the psychological drama film Fight Club (1999) tackles the unfortunate shift in the conception of masculinity as catapulted by the growth of advertising and consumerist movement. While it generated mixed reviews from critics, the movie is undeniably influential as it engendered a public discourse that made men wake up from the numbness of the society. Adopted from the novel of the same title by Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club follows the unnamed protagonist (who, as in the movie script, will be referred to here as Jack; played by Edward Norton) who is not satisfied with his humdrum career as an automobile company recall agent. As his job demands him to travel often, Jack meets Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) who lives by making and selling soaps in one of his flights. Upon reaching his hometown, Jack learns that his condominium was blown up. He calls up Tyler who agrees to admit him to his home. In Tyler’s pad, the duo is joined by a self-indulgent woman Marla Singer (played by Helena Bonham-Carter), who engaged in a sexual relationship with Tyler. When Jack moved with Tyler, the two found Fight Club wherein blue-collared men meet every Saturday night to fight one another. For the duo, this is a way to wake up men drowning in consumerist ideals from the deadness and dormancy of the society. Soon enough, the club becomes popular all throughout America and develops into an anti-materialistic group known as Project Mayhem. The project aims to put an end to the corporate machineries by initiating anarchist attacks such as bombing several business corporations using homemade dynamites.

 

Eventually, Jack learns that Tyler is planning to bomb the entire business district. Moreover, he discerns that he is in fact Tyler Durden. In the end, he tries to resolve this psychosomatic issue while trying to save Marla whom he loves. In the movie, two of the most important symbolisms in the movie are soaps and bombs. However, that will not be the focus of this paper. This article will analyze the validity of Tyler’s description of the chemical process of soap and explosive making. Bursting your bubble Soaps are metal salts of fatty acids. The process called saponification, a reaction yielding alcohol and carboxylate (salt of carboxylic acid), explains the process of soap making. In the movie, Tyler gruesomely scouted for the fats extracted from the richest people through liposuction. After processing the collected fat, Tyler described the process of soap making as follows: “As the fat renders, the tallow floats to the surface. Keep stirring. Once the tallow hardens, you skim off the layer of glycerin.” The earliest historical evidence for soap production is recorded during the supremacy of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire dated 2800 BC. The recipe is composed of ashes, cypress oil and sesame seed oil in equal proportions. Meanwhile in 1550 BC, Egyptians were found to take a bath with a foamy substance made from mixing animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts. Currently, soap is regarded as one of the top personal hygiene products. Saponification, as aforementioned, is a widely-used method of making soaps from fatty acid derivatives. In the process, ester is hydrolyzed upon intensive agitation (usually through stirring). Thus, through the reaction between the fatty acid and the lipid, the products formed are soap, water and glycerine. For organic chemistry students in the Ateneo, such a process might sound familiar as the experiment is performed as a sem-ender. In the activity, the strong base sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is mixed with vegetable oil in a ratio of 3:2. This ratio is the ideal saponification value, or the required amount of base to facilitate the reaction.

Meanwhile, fatty acids also have some qualifications. The commercially available soaps are usually made from sodium salts of 12 to 19 carbon-long fatty acids as the cleansing strength of the soap depends on length of the carbon backbone. Soaps made from fatty acids with at most seven carbons have no cleansing power; soaps made from very lengthy 19-carbon fatty acid do not dissolve in water. The sodium hydroxide-vegetable oil mixture should be continuously stirred until no more oil globule is available. Sodium hydroxide acts on the triglyceride vegetable oil by accelerating the cleavage of the ester bond. Note that triglyceride is actually a trimester. Because of this, vigorous stirring must be performed to completely disrupt the said bonds. This agitation leads to the production of the fatty acid salt and glycerol. Glycerol is then evicted from the solution usually by simple decantation. (This part will be discussed again on the next section.) Once glycerol is eliminated, sodium chloride (NaCl) and water in small amount are added to the sodium acid solution to desalt it and for the salt to precipitate.

While Tyler’s protocol is definitely gruesome, it is quite possible. In all reality, commercial soaps are made mostly from vegetable oil, extracted fruit essential oil, or animal fat. However, the last source needs an additional step since animal fat (such as that from liposuction in Tyler’s case) may have adipocere or “mortuary wax.” This crumbly insoluble substance grows well in liposuction waste area for three reasons: small numbers of decomposing agents, treatment with alkaline reagents and the high amounts of fatty tissue.

Mayhem on the blast

While soap making from human fat is possible, Tyler’s description for bomb making may have a different fate. In the movie, Tyler described that bombs and dynamites may be created using the glycerin which is treated as a by-product of the reaction. Thus, in making bombs, the thick layer of glycerine is not skimmed off but is instead left or even mixed with the solution. After letting the glycerine stay in the solution, nitric acid is added to form nitroglycerin. While the reaction is quite true, Tyler left out an important detail. To create nitroglycerin dynamite, glycerin must be added to the cold nitric acid and sulfuric acid of the similar temperature. In Tyler’s procedure, however, nitric acid and sulfuric acid were added to glycerin tallowed from the mixture. This results to explosion due to overheating which is undesirable for explosives. Nitroglycerin, however, does not come without medical uses. The compound serves as a vasodilator which prevents angina pectoris or chest pain attacks. Also, nitroglycerin currently being used as a medication for prostate cancer and congenital heart disease.

According to Tyler, upon the addition of sodium nitrate and sawdust, dynamite can be formed. While the sodium nitrate part is correct, sawdust is not used in dynamite making. Instead of sawdust, a siliceous sedimentary rock known as kieselguhr or diatomite is being added to stabilize the dynamite and prevent unwanted explosion. This natural occurring rock is made up of around 85% silica, 4% alumina, 2% iron oxide and trace elements. Aside from making dynamites, applications of kieselguhr include liquid absorbent, promoter of blood clotting, mild abrasive, and mechanical insecticide.

Fight Club, however, is not the only movie to use this application of chemistry concepts. In the concluding episode of Lost Season 1, upon mentioning of the mysterious latch that they need to open, protagonist Dr. Jack Shephard was led by French scientist Rousseau to Black Rock’s shipwreck. Upon retrieving the box of nitroglycerin dynamite, Dr. Leslie Arzt exploded when he exposed the material to the sun. Dr. Jack and company noted that the explosive detonated because its activity is heightened by a long period of dormancy in an alkali environment inside the ship. They travelled the two dynamite sticks by wrapping it with a wet towel and putting it inside a bag.

Meanwhile, nitroglycerin dynamite is nowadays widely used for terrorism attacks. The first noted case of sabotage of a commercial aircraft revolves around the use of nitroglycerin bombs. In October 10, 1933, United Airlines NC13304 Boeing 247 crashed in Indiana killing all people on-board – 4 passengers and 3 crew. While it was concluded later on that a nitroglycerin bomb is present in one of the luggage, the investigators did not find any suspect.

Thus, Tyler is right when he said “Yeah, with enough soap, we can blow up just about anything.” Yikes! People, make sure to remove the glycerin when you make soap.