Alpha-sulfonated methyl ester as an active ingredient in palm-based powder detergents

摘要

Palm-based alpha-sulfonated methyl esters (SME) were successfully produced using a 20 kg/h-capacity pilot plant at the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. This anionic surfactant was used as an active ingredient to formulate powder detergent. The production of palm-based powder detergents (PPD) was carried out at the pilot-plant scale. The performance of powder detergents formulated with SME was found to be excellent. At a total concentration of 0.8 g/L, good detergency of PPD was obtained when only using 12% to 18% SME, compared to the commercial detergent with 27% surface-active agent. The foaming power and wetting characteristics of PPD were also comparable to the values for the commercial detergent. The study has shown that PPD were able to biodegrade faster than the commercial detergent, where the maximum time period to reach the pass level (60%) is within 14 days. The toxicity of the PPD, which ranged from 5.66 to 8.0 mg/L, is similar to the toxicity of the commercial detergent. A detailed description of the SME application technologies in powder detergents and the properties of formulated powder detergents are highlighted in this paper.