Bar Soap Synthesis Lab From Fats And Lye - 993 Words

Bar Soap Synthesis Lab from Fats and Lye Introduction When an acid and a base combine they neutralize each other and make a salt. In simple terms, saponification is the name for a chemical reaction between an acid and a base to form a salt called soap.409575187388500 Saponification has been used for centuries as a part of the soap making industry. Many companies create a variety of soap products for commercial use, soaps can be in multiple forms like bars, liquid, or even powder. In this lab it was planned to create a bar of soap. Heating triglyceride in a fat or oil with an aqueous alkali, sodium hydroxide, results in hydrolysis of the triglyceride esters forming soap. (Ausetute, 2014) A visual aid is presented in figure 1. (Chem La Tech, 2003) To create soap, two major raw materials are needed, fat and alkali. The alkali most commonly used today in soap making is sodium hydroxide. Potassium hydroxide can also be used. The alkali used in this lab was sodium hydroxide; sodium hydroxide was used as a reagent which is a substance that is used in a chemical reaction to produce other substances. The common term for an alkali is simply lye. Modern soap makers use fat that has been processed into fatty acids. (Made How, 2008) This removes many contaminations and it produces as a by-product of water instead of glycerin. Many vegetable fats, including olive oil and coconut oil, are also used in soap making. Since the fat or oil starting materials are not soluble in water, the