Introduction

Soap is integral to our society today, and we find it hard to imagine a time
when people were kept sweet-smelling by the action of perfume rather than soap.
However, the current widespread use of soap is only a very recent occurrence,
despite the fact that it has been made for more than 2500 years. The first recorded
manufacture of soap was in 600BC, when Pliny the Elder described its manufacture
by the Phonecians from goats tallow and ash, and it was known among the British
Celts and throughout the Roman Empire. However, these people used their soap
medicinally, and it was not until the second century AD that it was used for
cleaning, and not until the nineteenth century that it began to be commonly used in
the Western world.
Soap is a combination of animal fat or plant oil and caustic soda. When
dissolved in water, it breaks dirt away from surfaces. Through the ages soap has
been used to cleanse, to cure skin sores, to dye hair, and as a salve or skin
ointment. But today we generally use soap as a cleanser or perfume.
Soaps and detergents are essential to personal and public health. Through
their ability to loosen and remove soil from a surface, they contribute to good
personal hygiene; reduce the presence of germs that cause infectious diseases;
extend the useful life of clothes, tableware, linens, surfaces and furnishings; and
make our homes and workplaces more pleasant.

Soap Manufacturing Process

Soap and detergent manufacturing consists of a broad range of processing
and packaging operations. The size and complexity of these operations vary from
small plants employing a few people to those with several hundred workers.
Products range from large-volume types like laundry detergents that are used on a
regular basis to lower-volume specialties for less frequent cleaning needs.
Cleaning products come in three principal forms: bars, powders and liquids.
Some liquid products are so viscous that they are gels. The first step in
manufacturing all three forms is the selection of raw materials. Raw materials are
chosen according to many criteria, including their human and environmental safety,
cost, compatibility with other ingredients, and the form and performance
characteristics of the finished product. While actual production processes may vary
from manufacturer to manufacturer, there are steps which are common to all
products of a similar form.

Bar Soaps
Traditional bar soaps are made from fats and oils or their fatty acids which
are reacted with inorganic water-soluble bases. The main sources of fats are beef
and mutton tallow, while palm, coconut and palm kernel oils are the principal oils
used in soapmaking. The raw materials may be pretreated to remove impurities and
to achieve the color, odor and performance features desired in the finished bar. The
chemical processes for making soap, i.e., saponification of fats and oils and
neutralization of fatty acids, are described in the
Chemistry section.

Soap was made by the batch kettle boiling method until shortly after World
War II, when continuous processes were developed. Continuous processes are
preferred today because of their flexibility, speed and economics.
Both continuous and batch processes produce soap in liquid form, called neat
soap, and a valuable by-product, glycerine (1). The glycerine is recovered by
chemical treatment, followed by evaporation and refining. Refined glycerine is an
important industrial material used in foods, cosmetics, drugs and many other
products.
The next processing step after saponification or neutralization is drying.
Vacuum spray drying is used to convert the neat soap into dry soap pellets (2). The
moisture content of the pellets will vary depending on the desired properties of the
soap bar.
In the final processing step, the dry soap pellets pass through a bar soap
finishing line. The first unit in the line is a mixer, called an amalgamator, in which
the soap pellets are blended together with fragrance, colorants and all other
ingredients (3). The mixture is then homogenized and refined through rolling mills
and refining plodders to achieve thorough blending and a uniform texture (4).
Finally, the mixture is continuously extruded from the plodder, cut into bar-size units
and stamped into its final shape in a soap press (5).
Some of today's bar soaps are called "combo bars," because they get their
cleansing action from a combination of soap and synthetic surfactants. Others,
called "syndet bars," feature surfactants as the main cleansing ingredients. The
processing methods for manufacturing the synthetic base materials for these bars
are very different from those used in traditional soapmaking. However, with some
minor modifications, the finishing line equipment is the same.

Powder Detergents
Powder detergents are produced by spray drying, agglomeration, dry mixing
or combinations of these methods.

In the spray drying process, dry and liquid ingredients are first combined into
a slurry, or thick suspension, in a tank called a crutcher (1). The slurry is heated and
then pumped to the top of a tower where it is sprayed through nozzles under high
pressure to produce small droplets. The droplets fall through a current of hot air,
forming hollow granules as they dry (2). The dried granules are collected from the
bottom of the spray tower where they are screened to achieve a relatively uniform
size (3).
After the granules have been cooled, heat sensitive ingredients that are not
compatible with the spray drying temperatures (such as bleach, enzymes and
fragrance) are added (4). Traditional spray drying produces relatively low density
powders.
New technology has enabled the soap and detergent industry to reduce the
air inside the granules during spray drying to achieve higher densities. The higher
density powders can be packed in much smaller packages than were needed
previously.

Agglomeration, which leads to higher density powders, consists of blending dry raw
materials with liquid ingredients. Helped by the presence of a liquid binder, rolling
or shear mixing causes the ingredients to collide and adhere to each other, forming
larger particles.
Dry mixing or dry blending is used to blend dry raw materials. Small
quantities of liquids may also be added.

Liquid Detergents
Both batch and continuous blending processes are used to manufacture liquid
and gel cleaning products. Stabilizers may be added during manufacturing to
ensure the uniformity and stability of the finished product.
In a typical continuous process, dry and liquid ingredients are added and
blended to a uniform mixture using in-line or static mixers.
Recently, more concentrated liquid products have been introduced. One
method of producing these products uses new high-energy mixing processes in
combination with stabilizing agents.

Packaging
The final step in the manufacture of soaps and detergents is packaging. Bar
soaps are either wrapped or cartoned in single packs or multipacks. Detergents,
including household cleaners, are packaged in cartons, bottles, pouches, bags or
cans. The selection of packaging materials and containers involves considerations of
product compatibility and stability, cost, package safety, solid waste impact, shelf
appeal and ease of use.

Continuous Soap Manufacturing Process Flowchart

Continuous Soap Manufacturing Process

Step 1 - Saponification
The raw materials are continually fed into a reactor in fixed proportions.
Assuming a production rate of 1000 kg wet soap per hour and a 80:20
tallow:coconut oil mix, the raw materials would be fed in at the following rates:
coconut oil 525.9 kg hr-1
tallow 131.5 kg hr-1
50% NaOH solution 3101 kg hr-1
These ingredients alone would give a low water, high glycerine soap. Soap
needs to be about 30% water to be easily pumpable, and even then needs to be
held at around 70oC, so excess lye is added to hydrate the soap and dissolve out
some of the glycerine. The lye added is known as "half spent lye" and is the lye
discharged from the washing column (see below). This lye already contains some
glycerine, but it is further enriched by that formed in the saponification reaction.

Step 2 - Lye separation

The wet soap is pumped to a "static separator" - a settling vessel which does
not use any mechanical action. The soap / lye mix is pumped into the tank where it
separates out on the basis of weight. The spent lye settles to the bottom from
where it is piped off to the glycerine recovery unit, while the soap rises to the top
and is piped away for further processing.

Step 3 - Soap washing

The soap still contains most of its glycerine at this stage, and this is removed
with fresh lye in a washing column. The column has rings fixed on its inside surface.
The soap solution is added near the bottom of the column and the lye near the top.
As the lye flows down the column through the centre, a series of rotating disks
keeps the soap / lye mixture agitated between the rings. This creates enough
turbulence to ensure good mixing between the two solutions.
The rate of glycerine production is calculated and the rate at which fresh lye
is added to thewashing column then set such that the spent lye is 25 - 35 %
glycerine. Glycerine is almost infinitely soluble in brine, but at greater than 35%
glycerine the lye no longer efficiently removes glycerine from the soap.

The soap is allowed to overflow from the top of the column and the lye ("half
spent lye") is pumped away from the bottom at a controlled rate and added to the
reactor.

Step 4 - Lye separation

The lye is added at the top of the washing column, and the soap removed
from the column as overflow. As the lye is added near the overflow pipe the washed
soap is about 20% fresh lye, giving the soap unacceptably high water and caustic
levels. Separating off the lye lowers the electrolyte levels to acceptable limits.
The soap and lye are separated in a centrifuge, leaving a soap which is 0.5%
NaCl and 0.3% NaOH, and about 31% water. The lye removed is used as fresh lye.

Step 5 Neutralisation
Although the caustic levels are quite low, they are still unacceptably high for
toilet and laundry soap. The NaOH is removed by reaction with a weak acid such as
coconut oil (which contains significant levels of free fatty acids), coconut oil fatty
acids, citric acid or phosphoric acid, with the choice of acid being made largely on
economic grounds. Some preservative is also added at this stage.

Step 6 - Drying
Finally, the water levels must be reduced down to about 12%. This is done by
heating the soap to about 125 oC under pressure (to prevent the water from boiling
off while the soap is still in the pipes) and then spraying it into an evacuated
chamber at 40 mm Hg (5.3 kPa). The latent heat of evaporation lost as the water
boils off reduces the soap temperature down to 45 oC, at which temperature it
solidifes onto the chamber walls. The soap chips are scraped off the walls and
"plodded" (i.e. squeezed together) by screws known as "plodder worms" to form
soap noodles. The soap is now known as base or neat soap chip, and can be
converted into a variety of different soaps in the finishing stages. The moisture
evaporated off the wet soap is transported to a barometric condensor, which
recondenses the vapour without the system losing vacuum. The moisture can
contain soap dust (.Fines.) which is removed by cyclones and returned by augers to
the spray chamber, while the water is recycled.