Compose a 1500 words essay on Saponification of Triglycerides. Needs to be plagiarism free!In this process the triglyceride is reacted with a strong base such as sodium or potassium hydroxide to produ

Compose a 1500 words essay on Saponification of Triglycerides. Needs to be plagiarism free!

In this process the triglyceride is reacted with a strong base such as sodium or potassium hydroxide to produce glycerol and fatty acid salts (Whitten et al., 2007). The saponification of glyceryl tristearate is illustrated in Figure 1.

The commonest soaps are the fatty-acid salts of sodium and potassium. Hard soaps are sodium salts while soft soaps are potassium salts. The fatty-acid salts of ammonium are also sometimes used for cleansing. Only a few other soaps are of practical importance, for example lead soaps which are used in medicinal plasters, zinc soaps which are used in ointments, and aluminum soaps which are used in waterproofing. Very few of the salts of fatty acids have the properties of common soap. Most of them are but slightly soluble in water, and therefore do not yield suds and have little or no detergent (i.e., cleansing) action. All are nevertheless termed soaps by chemists (Lewkowitsch, 1904).

The saponification number (S) is the number of milligrams of potassium hydroxide required to convert one gram of the fat completely into glycerine and potassium soap. It gives information concerning the character of the fatty acids of the fat and in particular concerning the solubility of their soaps in water. Table 1 lists the saponification number of the common fats and oils.

Table 1 shows that butter ranks with palm kernel oil and coconut oil as having a very high saponification number.