Methyl ester sulphonates (MES) have been considered as an alternative green surfactant for the detergent market. Investigation on the purification of methyl ester sulphonates (MES) with various carbon chains of C12, C14, C16 and C16-18 derived from palm methyl ester is of great interest. These MES powders have been repeatedly crystallized with ethanol and the purity of MES has increased to a maximum of 99% active content and 96% crystallinity index without changing the structure. These crystallized MES with high active content have 1.0% to 2.3% moisture content and retained its di-salt content in the range of 5%. The crystallized MES C16 and C16-18 attained excellent flow characteristics. Morphology, structural and its crystallinity analyses showed that the crystals MES had good solubility properties, stable crystal structure (β polymorphic) and triclinic lateral structure when it is in high active content. The brittleness of MES crystals increased from a β' to a β subcell. Crystal with high brittleness has the potential to ease production of powder, which leads to a reduction in the cost of production and improves efficiency.
An industrial grade acidic crude palm oil (ACPO) pre-treatment process was carried out using ethanesulfonic acid (ESA) as a catalyst in the esterification reaction. ESA was used in different dosages to reduce free fatty acid (FFA) to a minimum level for the second stage of biodiesel production via alkaline transesterification reaction. Different process operating conditions were optimized such as ESA dosage (0.25-3.5% wt/wt), methanol to ACPO molar ratio (1:1-20:1), reaction temperature (40-70 °C), and reaction time (3-150 min). This study revealed the potential use of abundant quantities of ACPO from oil palm mills for biodiesel production. The lab scale results showed the effectiveness of the pre-treatment process using ESA catalyst. Three consecutive catalyst recycling runs were achieved without significant degradation in its performance. Second and third reuse runs needed more reaction time to achieve the target level of FFA content. Esterification and transesterification using ESA and KOH respectively is proposed for biodiesel industrial scale production. The produced biodiesel meets the international standards specifications for biodiesel fuel (EN 14214 and ASTM D6751).
Phosphate-free spray dried detergent powders (SDDP) comprising binary anionic surfactants of palm C16 methyl ester sulfonate (C16MES) and linear alkyl benzene sulfonic acid (LABSA) were produced using a 5 kg/h-capacity co-current pilot spray dryer (CSD). Six phosphate-free detergent (PFD) formulations comprising C16MES/LABSA in various ratios under pH 7-8 were studied. Three PFD formulations having C16MES/LABSA in respective ratios of 0:100 (control), 20:80 and 40:60 ratios were selected for further evaluation based on their optimum detergent slurry concentrations. The resulting SDDP from these formulations were analysed for its detergency stability (over nine months of storage period) and particle characteristics. C16MES/LABSA of 40:60 ratio was selected as the ideal PFD formulation since its resulting SDDP has consistent detergency stability (variation of 2.3% in detergency/active over nine months storage period), excellent bulk density (0.37 kg/L), fine particle size at 50% cumulative volume percentage (D50 of 60.48 μm), high coefficient of particle size uniformity (D60/D10 of 3.86) and large spread of equivalent particle diameters. In terms of surface morphology, the SDDP of the ideal formulation were found to have regular hollow particles with smooth spherical surfaces. Although SDDP of the ideal formulation have excellent characteristics, but in terms of flowability, these powders were classified as slightly less free flowing (Hausner ratio of 1.27 and Carr's index of 21.3).
Liquid detergent has an increasing demand in North America, Western Europe, and Southeast Asia countries owing to its convenience to use and efficiency to clean. Alpha methyl ester sulfonates (α-MES), an anionic surfactant derived from palm oil based methyl ester, was reported to have lower manufacturing cost, good detergency with less dosage, excellent biodegradability, higher tolerance to hard water, and lower eco-toxicity as compared to linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LABS). LABS was known as the workhorse of the detergent industry in the 20th century. Although palm-based α-MES was successfully used as the sole surfactant in powder detergent, there are still some unsettled technical issues related to phase stability and viscosity when using this anionic surfactant in heavy-duty laundry liquid detergent formulations. This paper will review not only the market overview of detergents, the application and performance of green surfactants in laundry detergents but also will highlight the technical issues related to the application of palm-based α-MES in laundry liquid detergent and some of the possible methods to overcome the formulation adversities.
Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are commonly used as disinfectant in medical care, food industry, detergents and glue industries. This is due to a small concentration of QACs is sufficient to inhibit the growth of various bacteria strains. In this work, the inhibitive power of cationic surfactants, alkyltrimethylammonium bromide (C(n)TAB) in the presence of anionic surfactants, sodium alkyl methyl ester α-sulfonate (C(n)MES) was studied. The growth inhibition test with gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and gram-negative (Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa) bacteria were used to determine the toxicity of single and mixed surfactants. Results from this work showed that certain mixed surfactants have lower minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) as compared to the single C(n)TAB surfactants. Besides that, it was also found that alkyl chain length and the mixing ratios of the surfactants play a significant role in determining the mixture inhibitive power.