Thread: The Chemistry of Soap

I can see it in the bookstores.... Straight From The Mistress -- Colleen Hurley's Guide to Soap-Making

I've thought about it ya know. The idea came to me as I was moving piles of paper, to create other piles of paper, because I didn't have enough room for ALL OF MY PAPER......I thought to myself, Good Heavens...theres enough information here to write a book. (light bulb moment) lol.....

Colleen

Originally Posted by churley

I've thought about it ya know. The idea came to me as I was moving piles of paper, to create other piles of paper, because I didn't have enough room for ALL OF MY PAPER......I thought to myself, Good Heavens...theres enough information here to write a book. (light bulb moment) lol.....

Colleen

Another option is to make a DVD or CD-ROM. It a cheaper way of publishing!

Put me down for one!

Yeah? you're kidding me right, besides....

you must be unfamilar with my level of computer skill.... a DVD or a CD-Rom...why that must be at least 5th grade level skill. I'm still stuck in the first grade....I can't move to second until I learn how to post a picture by myself. ...lol.

Colleen

Colleen,
Have a laugh at this. Imagine a secretary used to a typewriter learning to use a computer when they first came out.

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?p=...UTF-8%26b%3D11

LOL....Thats Me! Thats ME!
Colleen

Well, seriously... I never venture off of my Vendor thread, is there a category somewhere on the forum where I could just plague Gents with questions regarding the computer stuff and posting pictures, and they wouldn't run me off.

C.

Colleen,

Ain't nobody here gonna run you off.....

Off Topic would be the place.

Well lets head to the Pineville, Mullins areas to
deliver Post Cards to about 12 Post Offices.



Terry

Good Morning Gents!

Small scale soap production didn't start until the Middle Ages, when, in the 1200's, the first manufacturing factories were set up in France and in England, still using animal fat as the main ingredient.....it is to be noted that, back then, soap was a very different product to what we use these days, its main problem being the insufficient purity of the alkaline component the fats were reacted with. Obtaining potash (potassium carbonate) from macerating wood or seaweed ashes in water, was a long and complicated process, which didn't always give consistent results.

For this reason, the single most important step in soapmaking history is the discovery, made just a few short years before the French Revolution by the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc (1742-1806), of a reliably consistent method for producing soda from Glauber' salt-sodium sulfate, made from common salt (sodium chloride, NaCI) and sulphuric acid (H25SO4) - and calcinated limestone and coal. Leblanc's process was substantially correct, but not free from unwanted side effects. This method would in fact leave behind huge amounts of highly toxic byproducts, which were very difficult to dispose of.

The problem was eventually solved by the Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay (1836- 1922), who, starting from the method defined by Leblanc, developed a process where sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, NaOH) is extracted by hydrolysis from water and salt (or simple seawater) His invention, Soda Solvay, was industrially trademarked and opened the way to modern soap production. (ref. soapnaturally.org)

Fast Forward....This is just a small peice of the article, it was pretty interesting because it has diagrams. Link, is at the bottom.

From American Colonial days to the early 1940's soap was manufactured by an alkaline hydrolysis reaction called saponification. Soap was made in huge kettles into which fats, oils, and caustic soda were piped and heated to a brisk boil.

After cooling for several days, salt was added causing the mixture to separate into two layers with the "neat" soap on top and the spent lye and water on the bottom. The soap was pumped into a closed mixing tank called a crutcher where builders, perfumes, and other ingredients were added. Builders are alkaline compounds ( surfactants, chelators- hard water/soft water story) which improve the cleaning performance fo the soap. Finally the soap was rolled into flakes, cast or milled into bars, or spray-dried into soap powder.

An important process (post 1940's) for making soap is the direct hydrolysis of fats by water at high temperatures. This permits fractionation of the fatty acids, which are neutralized to soap in a continuous process (shown in Fig 2.2-1)

Advantages for the process include better control of the soap concentration, the ability to prepare soaps of certain chain lengths for specific purposes and easy recovery of glycerin, a by product.

After the soap is recovered, it is pumped to the crutcher and treated the same as the product from the kettle process.

www.epa.gov//ttn/chief/ap42/ch06/bgdocs/b06s08.pdf

Next week we'll do some of the different oils and their properties in soapmaking....and I'll post a simple cold-process recipe.

Colleen

Informative and eloquent as always, Colleen! Thanks for sharing another piece of your magic with us

Good Evening Gents!

My apologies for not being able to write anything this evening. But I will continue tomorrow evening. I think I will be adding a bit more about the different processes of soapmaking..after reading the above...I think it needs to be "fleshed" out a bit...like me..lol.

And then the promised cp recipe with instructions...so every body on planet earth can learn to make their own. "Give me a Fish, feed me for a day; Teach me to fish, feed me for a lifetime" I don't remember the author of this, does anyone else know ?

Gotta Run C.