Chapter 5

Chemicals for Consumers

A. SOAP AND DETERGENT

Definition:
Soap
A sodium or potassium salt of long-chain fatty acid
General formula of soap:
RCOO-Na+ or RCOO-K+
Detergent
A sodium or potassium salt of alkyl sulphonic acids
or alkylbenzene sulphonic acid

Soap preparation process

Soap is prepared by hydrolyzing fats or oils under
alkaline condition. This reaction is called
SAPONIFICATION

The process involves boiling fats or oils with

concentrated NaOH or concentrated KOH to
produce glycerol and the salts of fatty acids which
are the soap

Oil/Fat

+
Glycerol

Soap

Preparation a soap in lab

Describe how soap can be prepared in
laboratory
Procedure:
1. Place 10 g of palm oil in a beaker
2. Slowly and carefully add 15 cm3 of 6 mol dm-3
concentrated sodium hydroxide solution
3. Gently heat the mixture, stirring wing glass rod until
the oil layer becomes invisible
4. Add 20 ml of water and stir
5. Cool the mixture. Add 12 g of sodium chloride to 50
ml of water. Pour the cooled mixture into the sodium
chloride solution
6. Cool the mixture. The solid cake that form is the soap

Why is sodium chloride added to the mixture?

Sodium chloride, NaCl is added to:
Reduces the solubility of soap in water
To precipitate the soap produced

Detergent preparation process

During the preparation of detergent, a long-chain
hydrocarbon obtained from petroleum fraction is
converted into an organic acid through a series of
steps.
The organic acid is then neutralized with sodium
hydroxide, NaOH solution to produce a detergent.

Structure of soap
Soap consists of sodium/potassium cations and soap
anions
When a sodium/potassium soap dissolve in water, it
will form soap anions and sodium ion, Na+ or
potassium ion, K+

What is soap anions?

Hydrophobic
(water-hating)

Hydrophilic
(water-loving)

Cleaning action of soap & detergent

When
soap/detergent is
added to water,
soap/detergent
molecule dissolve in
water to form free
moving anions and
cations
Soap reduces surface
tension of water

 The hydrophobic
part dissolve in
grease
The hydrophilic part
attracted to water
molecule

 Mechanical agitation
during scrubbing
helps the hydrophobic
part pull away the
grease from the
surface
The grease is broken
up into small droplet

 The droplet does

not coagulate due
to the repulsion
between negative
charges
The droplets are
suspended in water
to form an
emulsion
When rinsed, the
droplet will be
removed

The effectiveness of detergent

Hard water contain calcium ion, Ca2+ and magnesium
ion, Mg2+
Soap anions react with Ca2+ ion and Mg2+ ion to form
scum
Scum is insoluble in water
Detergent does not form scum