Soap Ingredients
LAB Purpose: To make a basic soap and a soap with other than basic
ingredients
using Lye, Olive Oil and Oatmeal and to learn about the history
of soap and how
the process of saponification works. Procedure: A. Basic
Olive oil soap
Materials a. 1- 2 liter beaker b. 1- 100 ml beaker c. 2
thermometers d. 1
container with lid e. 1 balance f. 1 graduated cylinder g.
2 spoons h. 1
stainless steel bowl i. 1 heating plate 1. Put on safety
goggles 2. Person A:
Fill a container to cool the NaOH solution with cold
water and make sure someone
comes in before and after school for the next 4
or 5 days 3. Person B: Clean
working area, cover immediate work area with
newspaper, get plastic container
that will hold soap and mark with tape on
base of container. 4. Person C: put on
latex gloves a. Weigh 100g (3.5 oz.)
of NaOH and put it in the 2 liter beaker.
b. Measure 283.5 ml (10 oz.) of
cold water. c. Slowly add water to NaOH and stir
with a spoon to dissolve
NaOH. Place thermometer in the solution and place the
beaker in the cooling
container. d. Stir NaOH and cool to 38 degrees Celcius and
keep this
temperature constant until person D is at 38 degrees with the oil
mixture.
Use heating plate or cooling container as necessary. e. Slowly add NaOH
to
the oil mixture while stirring constantly. f. Stir for 15 minutes. g.
Pour
into soap container and put lid on. 5.Person D a. Measure 643 ml (13
oz.) of
Olive oil and 175 ml of Blended oil. Add both to the stainless
steel mixing bowl
and put a thermometer in it. b. Heat oil to 38 degrees
Celcius. c. Once at 38
degrees, talk to person C and keep temperature
constant 6. After a few days
remove lid and air dry When soap has dried put
it on paper, cut into 8 pieces
and dry for a few more days. B. Oatmeal soap
Materials a. 1 muffin container and
a piece of tape b. heating plate c.
balance d. oatmeal e. grater f. graduated
cylinder 1. Person A: Get a muffin
container and label it. 2. Person B: Weigh
out 100g of oatmeal. Grind oats in
blender until 1/5 original size. When oil and
water mixture has become clear,
add and mix in oatmeal. 3. Person C: Grate 340 g
(12 oz.) of the soap into
the metal bowl. 4. Person D: Get a heating plate,
measure and add 225 ml (9
oz.) of water to grated soap. Heat on low and stir
until soap has dissolved
to clear, take ot off the heat and add Person B's
oatmeal. 5. Person A: Pour
the mixture into a muffin container. Place container
in freezer. After drying
for a few days, pop out and let dry. Results: A. Olive
oil Soap The Olive oil
soap turned out quite well. The only thing that was
unexpected was the
awkward, and bumpy shape of the soap . But this is because of
the container
it was made in. Other than this, the Olive oil soap moisturizes
much better
and is much gentler than commercial brands. B. Oatmeal Soap Just as
the Olive
oil soap turned out great, the Oatmeal soap turned out even better.
The
only drawback is that the oatmeal flakes weren't ground up enough. This
is
not very attractive but it doesn't really do anything to the soap's
performance.
Conclusion: A. Olive oil Soap This was a farely error free
procedure. One of the
problems was getting the oil and the NaOH to match up
exactly degrees Celcius.
This could be avoided in the future by using
identical hot plates and heating
each liquid slowly paying very close
attention to it. One minor problem was that
the top of the soap was uneven
after stirring it and it dryed that way. This
could be fixed simply by
smoothing it out after stirring. Another problem that
occurred was the white,
hard crust that formed. The white crust could possibly
be avoided by mixing
more often and mixing right up until the soap hardens. B.
Oatmeal Soap
The only problem that we encountered with the oatmeal soap was that
the
flakes were too big. To avoid this in the future it would be good to have
a
more sophisticated grinder and grind the flakes for a longer duration of
time.
References: 1. Hiscox, Gardner D. Henley's 20th Century Book of
10,000 Formulas,
Processes and Trade Secrets. Norman W. Henley Publishing
Company: New York, 1937
2. Bakule, Paula Dreifus. Rodale's Book of
Practical Formulas. Rodale Press:
Pennsylvania, 1991. 3.
www.soapsuppliesplus.com/info/MeltPourTips.html 4.
www.soapman.com 5. Grandma
and Grandpa Johnson Questions: 1. 2. One of the major
differences between
commercial soaps and the soap made in the lab is the
ingredients. Commercial
soaps are made of fats instead of oil. Most of the fat
comes from beef and
pork. This cleans your skin, but it doesn't add anything.
Therefore, the
fats tend to leave skin dry and tight. The oil soaps moisturize
as well as
clean the skin. The reason for this is that oil is very expensive.
The
commercial soaps have a totally different chemical structure due to
the
different chemicals added. The commercial brand is softer, and greasier.
The oil
soap is harder, and smoother. The commercial brand leaves skin
feeling dry,
tight and very clean. The Olive oil soap and Oatmeal soap do not
just clean, but
they seem to moisturize as well. Commercial soaps also
produce lather where the
soaps we made do not. This, however, has no effect
on the performance of the
soap. 3. A soap-like material found in ancient
Babylon is evidence that
soapmaking was known as early as 2800 BC The
Egyptians, Greeks, Israelites,
Japanese Germans, and Romans all are known
to have bathed at some time. The lack
of personal cleanliness and related
unsanitary living conditions contributed
heavily to the great plagues of the
Middle Ages, and especially to the Black
Death of the 14th century. It
wasn't until the 17th century that cleanliness and
bathing was practiced in
much of Europe. Well into the 19th century, soap was
heavily taxed as a
luxury item in several countries. When the high tax was
removed, soap became
available to ordinary people, and cleanliness improved. The
scientific
discoveries of Cheveul and Solvay, together with the development of
power to
operate factories, made soapmaking one of America's
fastest-growing
industries by 1850. At the same time, its broad availability
changed soap from a
luxury item to an every day necessity. 4. During WWII my
friend Andrew's
grandparents lived on farms in Southern Nebraska. They said
that noone really
had any soap because it wasn't available to buy. Oil to
make it was very
expensive and rare and would be used for other things if
they had it. 5A. Olive
oil soap is $.84/bar and we made 8 bars. B. Oatmeal
soap is $.63/bar of oatmeal
soap and we made 6 bars 6. 99g/36 per mol = 2.75
mol/.283 L. 7. They are making
a profit of $5.37 10 $9.37 which is a percent
mark-up of 852% to 1487% 8. Soaps
made of sodium are hard soaps and soaps
made of potassium are sort soaps. You
can also add things like beeswax to
make a soap hard. 9. Soaps are mainly made
of fats or oils. They are made
using triglycerides and an alkali or base. The
two then combine and produce
neutral soap. Detergents are cleaning products made
from a variety of raw
materials. 10. see attached sheet. 11. An emulsion is
colloidal sized
droplets (about 100 nm wide) of one liquid suspended in another
liquid. In
oil and water the oil isn't truly dissolved because because the
molecules are
still intact. The oil is just broken apart into the very small
molecules
which float around in the solution. Emulsions are mainly used to break
down
oils, fats, and greases. 12. Soap is an emulsifying reagent. When fat
is
introduced to soap, the polar part of the fatty acid dissolves in the non
polar
part in the soap. 13. Boiling point change = .51 C/m x 2.475 mol NaOH x
2 ions =
.51 oC/m x 8.84 x 2 ions = 109.37 C Freezing point change = -1.86
C/m x 8.84m x
2 ions = -32.88 14A. Based on the trends in the table, at
room temperature,
Menhaden oil and Tung oil would be in a liquid state
because they both have more
unsaturated oil then saturated oil in them. B.
The percent distributions of
fatty acids for butter would be something like
this: 90% saturated 5%
mono-unsaturated 5% poly-unsaturated. This is an
approximate estimate, but no
matter what the exact distribution value's are,
their would always be a very
high ratio of saturated oils, and a very low
ratio of unsaturated oils. 15.
Percent distributions of saturated,
mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated oils
in our soap, based on the amounts
used in the lab: saturated: (12 + 9)/ 2 =
10.5% saturated
mono-unsaturated: (29 + 85)/ 2 = 57% mono-unsaturated
poly-unsaturated: (59 +
6)/ 2 = 32.5% poly-unsaturated