[Gunther]

Is that TEA-lauryl sulfate?
Or TEA-sulfate

The former likely behaves as a surfactant, with foam and everything.
The latter likely behaves as salt.

What’s the formula for?

[Gunther]

@Perry  for additional protection, you can always contact your web hosting company
and ask them to run a virus/malware/coinware scan on the server hosting chemistscorner.com , since you got a customer comment on that.
They should do that free of charge.

I didn’t notice any of that. But my antivirus ain’t top notch either.

[Gunther]

In a general purpose chemicals shop that sells some food grade chemicals,
as Ammonium carbonate/bicarbonate are often used in bakery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_carbonate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_bicarbonate

[Gunther]

You can check alcohol hand sanitizer formulations.

IMO a carbopol may help suspend Mg carbonate better

https://docplayer.net/19845823-Formulating-hydroalcoholic-gels-with-carbopol-polymers.html

https://www.scribd.com/document/92083989/TDS-255-Formulating-Hydro-Alcoholic-Gels-With-Carbopol-Polymers

[Gunther]

What’s cocobutane and why is it there?
Why urea?

What’s DEA? The Drug Enforcement Agency?

[Gunther]

I did
it makes them nicer

but soap biggest problem remains: its high pH
Hot process has lower (less high) pH than cold process

but the big problem is soap chemistry
so you can’t lower it’s pH much without having it revert back to free fatty acid.

IMO the best solution is skip saponification altogether
and start with fatty acids (either buying premade distilled fatty acids, or hydrolyzing oils with an acid catalyst yourself)

Then neutralizing the fatty acids with Ammonium carbonate (or bicarbonate)
to get an Ammonium soap that seems to handle lower pH without decomposing.

Somehow ammonium carbonate works so much better (and not as smelly) as neutralizing fatty acids with ammonia.

[Gunther]

Update:

Prediluting LABSA still made a milky white solution, albeit now it seems fully dissolved, unlike the previous white powder precipitate.

Phase A
distilled or demineralized water 10 % vol
NaOH 2.31% wt

Phase B
water 40% vol
LABSA 10% vol

Allow for each phase to be fully dissolved
Then pour phase B to A.

Maybe LABSA decomposes when touching large amounts of concentrated Sodium hydroxide?

Next time I’ll try slowly pouring phase A to B, pouring it real slow, while allowing ample time for it to react, and get fully dissolved.

Sometimes I got the white powder precipitate, sometimes it didn’t and worked perfectly with the same batch,
but my experimentation notes only mention ‘Phase A+B’ and I don’t quite remember how the phases were added together.

[Gunther]

@Fekher

While pH 7 is OK, it’s still far from optimal for hair or skin.

I believe that it’s better to start R&D testing with free fatty acids, instead of saponiying oils.

Best if you can get some distilled fatty acids, so they match what’s available commercially, and they’re cheaper than vegetable oils.
If not, oleic acid works fine
IMO stick to liquid fatty acids, and avoid those that need heating to melt (i.e. stearic acid).

Then you can try neutralizing the fatty acids with Sodium, Potassium hydroxide, Triethanolamine, Ammonia, etc
(to avoid smelly fumes, use a closed bottle when neutralizing with ammonia)

Once you develop a proper soap
you can consider either making soap from distilled fatty acids
or hydrolyzing oils with acid to make fatty acids yourself, then neutralizing them with a base.

This expired patent advises to use Sulfur dioxide to avoid yellowing from saponifying unsaturated acids with triethanolamine.
https://patents.google.com/patent/US2754305A/en

[Gunther]

The problem is that at lower pH levels, strong acids (citric or lactic acid) displace the weaker acids (fatty acids) out of the salt (soap).

Thus they revert to the insoluble and non-surfactant fatty acids + Sodium citrate.

[Gunther]

@Chemist77  @DAS   I’m trying to make Sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate out of Linear alkylbenzene sulfonic and Sodium hydroxide (in water solution).
Then will use the Sodium sulfonate for several products, like dishwash and laundry detergent liquid.

distilled or deminaralized water 50% vol
Sodium hydroxide flakes 1.31% or 2.31% wt
I wait for the NaOH flakes to fully dissolve, before adding the sulfonic acid. IDK if this makes any difference.
Linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid 10% vol
Then I get the dreaded white powder

The above formula doesn’t add up to 100% as some ingredients will be added later, but I can’t get past the neutralization stage unless I predilute sulfonic acid:

Phase A
water 10% vol
NaOH 1.31% wt (or 2.31% if additional acids like citric acid (to get Sodium citrate builder), or oleic acid (for laundry detergent suds control) will be added later)

Phase B
water 40% vol
Linear alkylbenzene sulfonic acid 10% vol
even the sulfonic acid takes a couple days to fully dissolve (it forms a brown gunk) and you can’t stir it much as bubbles appear.

Finally add phase B to A
I prefer to handle the sulfonic acid larger volume solution, instead of NaOH smaller volume but more dangerous to handle.

[Gunther]

I wonder what the white powder is
it ain’t supposed to be there

Linear Sulfonic acid shouldn’t precipitate out of solution (and ain’t a white powder AFAIK)

Sodium sulfonate. While the powder can be white, it should be soluble, and make a pale yellow solution.

The only thing I can think of, is that Sodium hydroxide has some Sodium carbonate in it, but it still should react to make Sodium sulfonate,
and no CO2 like bubbles are seen either.

At first I thought sulfonic acid was reverting EDTA Na-4 to EDTA free acid, but then I just reacted water + NaOH with sulfonic acid (nothing else added), and the white precipitate remains 

The mistery remains.

[Gunther]

@Fekher  the big problem is that adding an acid to bring down the soap pH
reverts it to the free fatty acid (insoluble in water, and not cleaning as soap is):

Na-fatty acid soap + citric (or lactic acid) —> free fatty acid + Sodium citrate (or lactate)

Ammonium soaps seem to tolerate a lower pH than Sodium or Potassium soaps, without decomposing as previously stated.

In fact, you shouldn’t allow Ammonium soaps pH to rise as they decompose:

Ammonium fatty acid soap + NaOH —->  Sodium fatty acid salt + Ammonia

On a side note
I wonder if Ammonium Laureth sulfate has a lower ionization than SLES does.
I’m tempted to buy some ALES to compare it head to head with SLES.

@Belassi praises the ammonium based Plantaren APB blend.
I wonder if ammonium salts make most of the difference, or if it’s actually related to proper Lauryl-Laureth-Lauramide ratios being used.

[Gunther]

@ngarayeva001 how do you rate PEG-8 dimethicone compared to amodimethicone?

[Gunther]

Triethanolamine is a strong base 
https://atomscientific.com/product/Triethanolamine_99
http://cameo.mfa.org/wiki/Triethanolamine

so its soaps will likely be as alkaline in solution as Sodium or Potassium ones.
You can try to see if they actually feel any better than Na or K.

If you can get the free fatty acids (i.e. distilled)
you can try neutralizing them with Ammonia solution
I tried it with oleic acid and Ammonium soap feels so much better than Na or K.

Please be aware than ammonia ain’t strong enough to saponify oils or fats (albeit triethanolamine might be), just enough to neutralize fatty acids.

This says Ammonium oleate solutions have slightly acidic pH, unlike the alkaline Sodium or Potassium soaps:

Acidic salts, such as AMMONIUM OLEATE, are generally soluble in water. The resulting solutions contain moderate concentrations of hydrogen ions and have pH’s of less than 7.0. They react as acids to neutralize bases. These neutralizations generate heat, but less or far less than is generated by neutralization of inorganic acids, inorganic oxoacids, and carboxylic acid. They usually do not react as either oxidizing agents or reducing agents but such behavior is not impossible. Many of these compounds catalyze organic reactions.
https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/chemical/8256

[Gunther]

@Fekher did you get the dreaded white powder precipitate when adding concentrated sulfonic acid without diluting it first?

[Gunther]

The most important thing will be the spray bottle.
Conventional atomizers need water-thin formulations to work.
So you’d need a special one that can work with thick formulations.

[Gunther]

@Microformulation where to find formulations in the formulatorsampleshop website?
I got lost and found no formulations.

[Gunther]

IDK for shampoos
but for pharmaceuticals they should check the Certificate of Analysis and adjust the active ingredient accordingly

Maybe the guys who have worked for large corporations can tell if that’s done there too.

[Gunther]

Adding more SLES and adding CAPB + alkanolamide sharply reduces the amount of salt required to thicken it, sometimes as little as 0.5% salt is enough.

0.5% salt doesn’t feel any more irritating or anything
you can’t really feel any noticeable difference (other than viscosity).

[Gunther]

Why do you want to remove silicones?

[Gunther]

Most dishwash liquids use SLES, not SLS
but you can always try with the latter to see if foam gets better.

Be aware that SLS is more skin irritating than SLES (albeit Sodium sulfonate is irritating too)
and if SLS comes in fine powder form, it can irritate your lungs.

CAPB was a bit pricey for an economy product
so I just added more LABSA (+NaOH) and SLES to get more foam.

[Gunther]

@pepe would you mind elaborating on cdea+pq10 use as thickeners?
What formulations do you can thicken with them?
Thanks in advance.

[Gunther]

@sendtoryan CAPB manufacturing requires hard to source, dangerous chemicals and maybe expensive equipment for safety.

You’ll need to make a lot of it to be profitable.
I can get some nice, generic chinese CAPB for $2.50 per Kilo, retail price by the Kg. Even cheaper by the drum.

@Belassi
LOL @ CAPB Heisenberg (Breaking Bad).
ROFL this one really made me laugh.

[Gunther]

@Fekher please tell us what do you want to improve

If it’s foam, you may:

1 further increase SLES content, which should require much less salt for thickening

2 You can also switch to a SLS+SLES combination (or ALS+ALES combo as @Belassi suggested, or a preblend)
Just be careful that the added SLS/ALS doesn’t make it too drying or irritating
https://www.happi.com/contents/view_features/2009-09-02/the-formulation-basics-for-personal-cleansers

If you want to improve its conditioning abilities

1 you may add some Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride, or Stearamidopropyl dimethylamine
https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/1475/formulating-with-stearamidopropyl-dimethylamine

2 And some silicones
for ease of manufacturing, you may with to use a water dispersible silicone, since silicones are insoluble in water

[Gunther]

Simply put BTMS-50 is both a conditioner and an emulsifier

It conditions hair on its own.
Please Google about conditioners and cationics (BTMS-50 is cationic).
Also about fatty alcohols (which BTMS-50 comprises) and conditioning.

It also can emulsify oils and silicones.
Please Google about oils, silicones and their effect on hair.
Please stick to scientific papers, as you’d find lots of pseudoscientific info needlessly bashing silicones.