Synthesis of Surfactant from Fatty Acid

Oil is an important world resource which is limited. Demand of oil increased every
day but conversely oil reservoirs keep depleted by day. This increasing demand
make exploitation oil to a higher degree is desirable. Surfactants are believed can be
a good second drive mechanism for enhance oil recovery since it has lower
interfacial tension. There are lots of surfactants types but fatty acid surfactant is
believed can be a good source for producing surfactant in Malaysia. This is because;
palm oil which is source of fatty acids is environmental friendly and highly resource
able in Malaysia. The scope of this research project is to synthesize surfactant from
fatty acids, characterize their properties and compare it to commercial surfactants'
properties. This surfactant is synthesized from palm cooking oil through purification
process and saponification process. Purification process involves decolorization,
deodorization, hydrolysis and distillation process whereas saponification process
involves titration between purified oil with five different molarity of sodium
hydroxides and potassium hydroxides. There are four experiment conducted to
characterize and compare properties of synthesize and commercial surfactants. They
are conductivity test, surfactants' effectiveness test, differential scanning calorimeter
and dynamic mechanical analyzer. Conductivity test plot, differential scanning
calorimeter plot and dynamic mechanical analyzer plot shows almost similar plot
between synthesize and commercial surfactants either on conductivity trends, phase
transition trends or modulus trend. This indicates they may have similar molecular
agitecture. However, they are some significant differences between them such as its
phase transition in differential scanning calorimeter, its modulus, viscosity or
chemical bonding among the materials. This differentiation signifies commercial
surfactant to have higher material degradability, higher interfacial tension and less
modulus/viscous than synthesize surfactant. There are predicted additive added to
commercial surfactant to have this significant properties. Thus, research must be
continued to develop the surfactants from fatty acid which can attest to industrial
applications.