Saponification of Triglycerides and Sodium Hydroxide in the Soap-Making Process

The synthesis of soap is achieved through the process of saponification. Saponification is an exothermic chemical reaction that occurs between fats or oils and a base. All fats and oils are composed of triglycerides that react when in contact with a strong base to produce glycerol and soap molecules. This is a fundamental reaction taught in organic chemistry, but we never had the opportunity to make soaps in the lab. Herein, we sought to establish a soap lab at Pacific that helps to apply knowledge learned in class to real-world applications. In the present work, we experimented with olive, coconut, canola, and vegetable oils with the goal of producing soap with a pH of approximately 7 and maximum cleaning efficiency. Our results suggest that coconut oil hardened the most quickly but has the worst cleaning efficiency, while vegetable oil hardened the slowest but had powerful cleaning ability. Therefore, we combine the olive oil with vegetable oil in a 2:1 ratio, producing soap with optimum cleaning ability and acceptable hardening time. The soap samples and the test data will be presented