Oleochemistry
study of vegetable oils and animal oils and fats
Oleochemistry is the study of vegetable oils and animal oils and fats, and oleochemicals derived from these fats and oils. The resulting product can be called oleochemicals (from Latin: oleum "olive oil"). The major product of this industry is soap, approximately 8.9 million tons of which were produced in 1990. Other major oleochemicals include fatty acids, fatty acid methyl esters, fatty alcohols and fatty amines. Glycerol is a side product of all of these processes. Intermediate chemical substances produced from these basic oleochemical substances include alcohol ethoxylates, alcohol sulfates, alcohol ether sulfates, quaternary ammonium salts, monoacylglycerols (MAG), diacylglycerols (DAG), structured triacylglycerols (TAG), sugar esters, and other oleochemical products.
As the price of crude oil rose in the late 1970s, manufacturers switched from petrochemicals to oleochemicals because plant-based lauric oils processed from palm kernel oil were cheaper. Since then, palm kernel oil is predominantly used in the production of laundry detergent and personal care items like toothpaste, soap bars, shower cream and shampoo.
Processes
Important process in oleochemical manufacturing include hydrolysis and transesterification, among others.
Hydrolysis
The splitting (or hydrolysis) of the triglycerides produces fatty acids and glycerol follows this equation:
RCO2CH2–CHO2CR–CH2O2CR + 3 H2O → 3 RCOOH + HOCH2–CHOH–CH2OH
To this end, hydrolysis is conducted in water at 250 °C. The cleavage of triglycerides with base proceeds more quickly than hydrolysis, the process being saponification.
The public source identifies “Oleochemistry” as study of vegetable oils and animal oils and fats. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oleochemistry, study and vegetable.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oleochemistry” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.