Essay On Saponification Of Soap

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Research Question
How does different concentration of sodium hydroxide and type of oil used affect the cleansing property of soap and its pH?
Introduction
Soap has been an inseparable part of human lives since 2800 B.C when the first soap-like substance was discovered in Ancient Babylons. The chemical reaction in the process of making soap is called saponification. The word saponification is used to honor Mount Sapo where the Romans learnt to make soap from their animal sacrificing tradition. The fat from the animal flesh mixed with the ashes from the wood produced a substance when reacted with rain water. Later on, the substance was called soap until today.
Soaps are surfactants ( surface active substances ) consisting of long hydrophobic
Through this research I want the community aware of this saponification process and they can learn to make soap with correct ingredient. Hot process method will be used in this experiment to reduce the time needed before the soap can be used (cold process method required six weeks before the soap can be used). I have chosen to make my own soap rather than using commercial soap as it allows me to modify the ingredients for experimental purposes and allow me to acquire new
Since glycerol has three –OH (alcohol) functional groups, three fatty acids are needed to make three ester functional groups and form tri-ester of glycerol or triglyceride. In addition, water is eliminated in this process. Figure.4: Esterfication of Triglyceride
Saponification
Saponification is a chemical reaction to break ester in presence of hydroxide in order to form carboxylate ion and alcohol where the carboxylate ion is the soap. There are several steps to be followed for the reaction mechanism. Firstly, the hydroxide ion from the alkali performs nucleophilic attack on the ester. Nucleophilic attack simply means that the compound with an electron deficit reacts with electron-rich reactant; in this case carbon acts as electron deficit. Figure.5: Nucleophilic attack
Secondly, -O-R leaves the group causing the formation of double bond between the carbon and oxygen. The product formed is carboxylic acid functional group. Figure.6: Leaving of O-R

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