• Formulating

  Does Sodium or Potassium oleate really inhibit foam?

  Posted by Gunther on October 5, 2018 at 4:56 pm

  Sodium or Potassium oleate is said to depress foam in liquid laundry detergents
  
  …Also let us add some oleic acid soap for suds control.
  https://www.happi.com/contents/view_/2011-03-04/formulating-manual-dishwash-detergents

  Several professional recipes include oleate too
  https://www.happi.com/contents/view_formulary/2005-12-01/ultra-liquid-laundry-detergent/

  But oleate leaves a rancid oil smell, as expected since oleic acid is unsaturated.

  I wonder if it actually reduces foam
  as it is a surfactant and it foams on its own.

  Chemist77 replied 5 years, 7 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies

  • oleate
• 3 Replies

• 

  Chemist77

  Member

  October 5, 2018 at 5:50 pm

  Try potassium cocoate and you will see the change in foam profile. An optimized formulation has a right amount of soap for suds control. Have done it with my LLD and once I overshot it, there was absolutely no foam in presence of a high amount of surfactants. 

• 

  Gunther

  Member

  October 6, 2018 at 5:49 pm

  Thanks I will try that
  I love the idea. Being cocoate (mostly) saturated, it ain’t as likely to go rancid.

  By any chance do you remember the approximate cocoate concentration that killed foam?

• 

  Chemist77

  Member

  October 7, 2018 at 10:00 am

  I don’t really remember but I believe it was above 5% or so. I could be wrong as well since I didn’t retain the sample and formula both. 

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