Materials used in soap-making

Fatty matter and oils, whether animal or vegetable, are made up of triglycerides. The main raw materials used in soap making include tallow from beef and sheep and coconut oil. The fruit of the coconut tree is much larger than the fruit of the palm tree. The coconut is green, which becomes brown on drying. It is the nut of the fruit that is used to make oil (Figure 25.1). Areas of cultivation are the Solomon Islands and the Philippines. 

Production of sodium hydroxide is measured in millions of tonnes (metric ton). Approximately 80 percent of the material produced is used by the chemical and paper industries. It is also heavily used in soap making and as a catalyst in the manufacture of biodiesel fuel. 

Amidosulfonates. Amidosulfonates or A/-acyl-A/-alkyltaurates, are derived from taurine, H2NCH2CH2S02Na, and are effective surfactants and lime soap dispersants (Table 9). Because of high raw material cost, usage is relatively small. Technically, amidosulfonates are of interest because they are stable to hydrolysis, unaffected by hard water, and compatible with soap. They have been used in soap—surfactant toilet-bar formulations. With shorter, acyl groups, they make excellent wetting agents. 

Once the volatile prodiicts have been pyrolyzed, one is left with a material that is mostly carbon, and these are called coke (from coal) and charcoal (from wood). Coke was of course used in blast furnaces to make iron (the volatiles would make the process less reproducible in reducing Fc203) by our ancestors, while charcoal was used in soap (mainly the alkalis in the ash) and as an adsorbent. 

Ingredients. The primary materials used in the manufacture of bar soaps are natural fats and oils. The performance and physical properties of soap bars can be varied by altering the blend of fats and oils used to make the neat soap. The most common materials used are top-quality animal tallows and coconut oil with blends ranging from 50% to 85% tallow. Generally it is found dial bars containing higher proportions of coconut soap are physically harder, more brittle, lather more, and are more expensive to produce due to the higher cost of coconut oil. It is therefore common practice to vary the blend of tallows and coconut oil to meet the desired properties and price of each product. 

Falm-kem Oil.—The Diamond Oil Company of Liverpool recently favoured the author with a sample of this oil, which would appear to be a useful material in soap-making, judging from its firmness at the temperature of TO . It hears a strong resemblance to cocoa-nut oil. 

The Soft Soap Manufacturers Convention of Holland stipulate that the materials used in soft-soap making must not contain more than 5 per cent, rosin it is also interesting to note that a patent has been granted (Eng. Pat. 17,278, 1900) for the manufacture of soft soap from material containing 50 per cent, rosin. 

Blue and Grey Mottled Soaps.—These are silicated or liquored soaps in which the natural mottling, due to the impure materials used in the early days of soap-making, is imitated by artificial mottling, and are, consequently, entirely different to curd mottled soaps. 

Chemical plants are a series of operations that take raw materials and convert them into desired products, salable by-products, and unwanted wastes. Fats and oils obtained from animals and plants are hydrolyzed (reacted with water) and then reacted with soda ash or sodium hydroxide to make soaps and glycerine. Bromine and iodine are recovered from sea water and salt brines. Nitrogen and hydrogen are reacted together under pressure in the presence of a catalyst to produce ammonia, the basic ingredient used in the production of synthetic fertilizers. 

Strontium nitrate [Sr(NOj)j], when burned, produces a bright red flame, and it is used in fireworks. During mihtary combat, it is used to make tracer bullets so that their paths can be tracked at night. Strontium is also used in making specialty metals when alloyed with other metals and in the manufacture of soaps, greases, and similar materials that are resistant to extreme high or low temperatures. 

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