INTRODUCTION

Soap
Soap is the term for a salt of a fatty acid or for a variety of cleansing and
lubricating products produced from such a substance. Household uses for soaps
include washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping, where soaps act as
surfactants, emulsifying oils to enable them to be carried away by water. In
industry, they are used as thickeners, components of some lubricants, and
precursors to catalysts.

Kinds of soaps
Since they are salts of fatty acids, soaps have the general formula (RCO2-)nMn+ (R
is an alkyl). The major classification of soaps is determined by the identity of Mn+.
When M is Na or K, the soaps are called toilet soaps, used for handwashing. Many
metal di-cations (Mg2+, Ca2+, and others) give metallic soap. When M is Li, the
result is lithium soap (e.g., lithium stearate), which is used in high-performance
grease.

How soaps are made?

Saponification of fats and oils is the most widely used soapmaking process. This
method involves heating fats and oils and reacting them with a liquid alkali to
produce soap and water (neat soap) plus glycerine.

The other major soap-making process is the neutralization of fatty acids with an
alkali. Fats and oils are hydrolyzed (split) with a high-pressure steam to yield crude
fatty acids and glycerine. The fatty acids are then purified by distillation and
neutralized with an alkali to produce soap and water (neat soap).

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When the alkali is sodium hydroxide, a sodium soap is formed. Sodium soaps are
"hard" soaps. When the alkali is potassium hydroxide, a potassium soap is formed.
Potassium soaps are softer and are found in some liquid hand soaps and shaving
creams.

The carboxylate end of the soap molecule is attracted to water. It is called the
hydrophilic (water-loving) end. The hydrocarbon chain is attracted to oil and
grease and repelled by water. It is known as the hydrophobic (water-hating) end

Saponification
Saponification is a process that involves conversion of fat or oil into soap and
alcohol by the action of heat in the presence of aqueous alkali (e.g. NaOH). Soaps
are salts of fatty acids whereas fatty acids are saturated monocarboxylic acids that
have long carbon chains (at least 10) e.g. CH3(CH2)14COOH.

Saponification of fats
Vegetable oils and animal fats are the traditional materials that are saponified.
These greasy materials, triesters called triglycerides, are mixtures derived from
diverse fatty acids. Triglycerides can be converted to soap in either a one- or a two-
step process. In the traditional one-step process, the triglyceride is treated with a
strong base (e.g. lye), which cleaves to the ester bond, releasing fatty acid salts
(soaps) and glycerol. This process is also the main industrial method for producing
glycerol. In some soap-making, the glycerol is left in the soap. If necessary, soaps
may be precipitated by salting it out with sodium chloride.

Fat in a corpse converts into adipocere, often called "grave wax". This process is
more common where the amount of fatty tissue is high and the agents of
decomposition are absent or only minutely present

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Saponification of fatty acids
The reaction of fatty acids with base is the other main method of saponification. In
this case, the reaction involves neutralization of the carboxylic acid. The
neutralization method is used to produce industrial soaps such as those derived
from magnesium, the transition metals, and aluminium. This method is ideal for
producing soaps that are derived from a single fatty acid, which leads to soaps with
predictable physical properties, as required by many engineering applications.

Saponification value
The saponification value is the amount of base required to saponify a fat
sample.[1] Soap makers formulate their recipes with a small deficit of lye to
account for the unknown deviation of saponification value between their oil batch
and laboratory averages.

Applications

Soft versus hard soap

Depending on the nature of the alkali used in their production, soaps have distinct
properties. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) gives "hard soap"; hard soaps can also be
used in water containing Mg, Cl, and Ca salts. By contrast, potassium soaps,
(derived using KOH) are soft soap. The fatty acid source also affects the soap's
melting point. Most early hard soaps were manufactured using animal fats and
KOH extracted from wood ash; these were broadly solid. However, the majority of
modern soaps are manufactured from polyunsaturated triglycerides such as
vegetable oils. As in the triglycerides they are formed from[4] the salts of these
acids have weaker inter-molecular forces and thus lower melting points.

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Lithium soaps
Lithium derivatives of 12-hydroxystearate and other fatty acids are important
constituents of lubricating greases. In lithium-based greases, lithium carboxylates
are thickeners. "Complex soaps" are also common, these being combinations of
metallic soaps, such as lithium and calcium soaps.

Fire extinguishers
Fires involving cooking fats and oils (classified as class K (US) or F
(Australia/Europe/Asia)) burn hotter than most flammable liquids, rendering a
standard class B extinguisher ineffective. Flammable liquids have flash points
under 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 Fahrenheit). Cooking oil is a combustible liquid,
since it has a flash point over 37 degrees Celsius. Such fires should be extinguished
with a wet chemical extinguisher. Extinguishers of this type are designed to
extinguish cooking fats and oils through saponification. The extinguishing agent
rapidly converts the burning substance to a non-combustible soap. This process is
endothermic, meaning that it absorbs thermal energy from its surroundings, which
decreases the temperature of the surroundings, further inhibiting the fire.

Micelle
A micelle (plural micelles ) is an aggregate (or supramolecular assembly) of
surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid. A typical micelle in aqueous
solution forms an aggregate with the hydrophilic "head" regions in contact with
surrounding solvent, sequestering the hydrophobic single-tail regions in the micelle
centre. This phase is caused by the packing behavior of single-tail lipids in a
bilayer. The difficulty filling all the volume of the interior of a bilayer, while
accommodating the area per head group forced on the molecule by the hydration of
the lipid head group, leads to the formation of the micelle. This type of micelle is
known as a normal-phase micelle (oil-in-water micelle). Inverse micelles have the
head groups at the centre with the tails extending out (water-in-oil micelle).
Micelles are approximately spherical in shape. Other phases, including shapes such
as ellipsoids, cylinders, and bilayers, are also possible. The shape and size of a

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micelle are a function of the molecular geometry of its surfactant molecules and
solution conditions such as surfactant concentration, temperature, pH, and ionic
strength. The process of forming micelles is known as micellisation and forms part
of the phase behaviour of many lipids according to their polymorphism.

Cleansing action of soaps

Most of the dirt is oily in nature and oil does not dissolve in water. When the soap
is in the form of micelles then it has the ability to clean the oily dirt which gets
accumulated at the center. These micelles remain as a colloidal solutions. The
various micelles present in water do not come together to form a precipitate as
each micelle repels the other because of the ion-ion repulsion.

Thus, the dust particles remain trapped in micelles (which remain suspended) and
are easily rinsed away with water. The soap solution appears cloudy as it forms a
colloidal solution which scatters light.

Surfactants
Water, the liquid commonly used for cleaning, has a property called surface
tension. In the body of the water, each molecule is surrounded and attracted by
other water molecules. However, at the surface, those molecules are surrounded by
other water molecules only on the water side. A tension is created as the water
molecules at the surface are pulled into the body of the water. This tension causes
water to bead up on surfaces (glass, fabric), which slows wetting of the surface and
inhibits the cleaning process. You can see surface tension at work by placing a
drop of water onto a counter top. The drop will hold its shape and will not spread.
In the cleaning process, surface tension must be reduced so water can spread and
wet surfaces. Chemicals that are able to do this effectively are called surface active
agents, or surfactants. They are said to make water "wetter. "Surfactants perform
other important functions in cleaning, such as loosening, emulsifying sink
dishes(dispersing in water) and holding soil in suspension until it can be rinsed
away. Surfactants can also provide alkalinity, which is useful in removing acidic
soils. Soap is an anionic surfactant. Other anionic as well as nonionic surfactants
are the main ingredients in today's detergents.

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Materials required:

Vegetable oil (castor oil, olive oil, coconut oil or palm oil)

20% sodium hydroxide solution

Common salt

Measuring cylinders

Glass beaker (250 ml)

Blue and red litmus papers

Glass rod

Bunsen burner

Wire gauze

Tripod stand

Filter funnel

Filter paper

Spatula

Knife

Real Lab Procedure:

Take 25 ml of coconut oil in a measuring cylinder and pour it into a 250 ml glass
beaker.

Measure 30 ml of 20% NaOH solution in another measuring cylinder and add it

into the beaker containing vegetable oil.

Vigorously stir the mixture using a glass rod.

Touch the beaker from outside. It is observed that the beaker is warm.

Place the beaker on a wire gauze placed over a tripod stand.

Heat the beaker using a Bunsen burner till the mixture become a whitish paste.

Remove the beaker from the flame and allow it to cool.

Dip a red litmus paper in the suspension formed.

When dipped in the suspension, the red litmus paper changes its colour to blue.

Dip a blue litmus paper in the suspension.

The colour of blue litmus paper remains the same.

To the above suspension, add 15g of common salt and stir it well with a glass rod.

After adding common salt, soap in the suspension gets precipitated out as solid.

Take a filter funnel and place a filter paper in it and fix it in a stand.

Place a beaker below the funnel.

Pour the contents of the beaker into the funnel over a glass rod and filter the
contents of the beaker.

After filtration, soap is left behind in the filter paper.

Transfer the soap into another filter paper using a spatula and dry it by pressing
with another filter paper.

Then, cut it into desired shape with a knife.