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Saponification number of motor oil
Hi all,
Moderator, if this question doesn’t belong here, please do remove or delete it.
I have been trying very hard the last 2 weeks to find out the sapo. number of motor oil but did not come to any answer.
I want to make something useful for the enviro. by turning motor oil into soap instead of letting it become a landfill.
All my searches gave nothing that I could go after. I thought either the motor oil is unsaponifiable and therefore no answer or it implies a sofisticated and expensive technical process making it worthless trying.
Thankfull endlessly in advance to anyone giving any guidance or pointers in the right direction.
May you all be blessed
Ameen
Retired French language teacher -
11 Replies
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I may be wrong, but in this case oil is not equal to oil. The structure is not such that it could be easily saponified and hence kick out glycerin and a saponified soap.
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Motor oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons and cannot be saponified into soap. Secondly, used oil has all sorts of metal contaminants etc.
If you’re interested in this kind of thing I suggest you take a look at building a biodiesel reactor; but first, tour the area and discover if the local fast food places will cooperate. -
Used motor oil is always badly contaminated. There’s no way to purify it enough to make it safe for personal care. In fact, there’s no way to purify it enough to make it safe to burn as a fuel. It’s best to just leave it be.
If you must use it as a project, how about working on a way to lock it up chemically so that it won’t contaminate the rest of the material in the landfill?
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@Microformulation, @Belassi, @Bob, thank you all ever so much for eretaking your time answering my question.
Pity that chemistry/technology did not yet come up with a way to tacle such a big problem, I guess I will simply wait nicely and see what happens.
I live in a place ruled by a Maffiocracy where everything is decided in dark rooms above our heads with no consideration for the real people that must struggle daily for just existing.
A place where private initiatives and entrepreneurship are empty words that are an abstract threat to the ruling Maffia, waiting for Godot……….
Ameen
Retired French language teacher -
Used cooking oil, on the other hand, has a variety of uses…
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i can try and do an HLB tomorrow for you
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@Bob…… yes, cooking oil has many uses but unfortunately, cooking oil is not available as such in this maffiocracy here, university and hospital and restaurant kitchens do not discard oil after the first or second cooking, they simply add new oil when they see the oil level diminuish in the frying pans, some have not changed oils for periods of years therefore there is no cooking oil available for recycling……….. there is no controling authority and no supervising hierarchy to take care of such control. The only laws that exist here are those that are defined by the ruling maffia and these rules and laws are light years away from what is good and beneficial for us simple citizens.
@chickenskin U R by far much greater than a god…..U R Human.
Thanks Bob, thanks Chickenskin for your inputs.
Ameen
Retired French language teacher -
i can try and do an HLB tomorrow for you
Do not confuse HLB and Sap Value
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A predicted required HLB would simply help you to determine the needed emulsifiers to create an emulsion with the oil. It does not address the environmental benefit that was proposed and in fact the emulsified oil would still contain the contaminants.
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OK, lets look at this for a minute:
The bulk of a typical motor oil consists of hydrocarbons with between 18 and 34 carbon atoms per molecule. (Wikipedia) It’s not a triglyceride, it won’t have a SAP number, and it won’t turn into soap if you add caustic to it.
The composition of used motor oil is here:
http://www.indianaacademyofscience.org/documents/proceedings/v112/ias_v112_n2_p109-116.aspxand here:
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15275920802119441It is apparently possible to make diesel or home fuel from it:
It may be even also possible to bring it back to a state where it can be used as motor oil again.
https://www.environment.gov.au/protection/used-oil-recycling/recycling-your-oil/uses-recycled-oil
https://mobiloil.com/en/article/car-maintenance/used-motor-oil-recycling/used-motor-oil-recycling
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_oil_recycling
Using it to make soap, or even surfactants, on the other hand, doesn’t seem possible/feasible.
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The used oil contained
838 .0 mg/kg Zn, 110.0 mg/kg Pb, 9 . 4
mg/kg Cd and 4100 mg/kg Ba
The lead and cadmium levels are pretty bad. The idea of spreading it on soil to decompose it is crazy because all the heavy metals will persist for ever poisoning the ground.
Even if you could make it into soap, the product would be prohibited from sale because of the heavy metals.
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