Overview of soap manufacturing technology

During the early stages, these processes were known as an art and there was no technical explanation for the different activities carried out during this process. Different researchers started working on the understanding of the structural aspects of soaps and tried to find out scientific explanations for the different steps during the processes. The pioneer work had been done by researchers such as Ferguson, Rosewear and others at the beginning of the last century which has helped in understanding of the formation of different phases during the processes.2-3 The precursor for the phase transformations was found to be the molecular aggregation of soap at different temperatures and compositions leading to formation of different solid and liquid phases in soap.  

The molecular association is not only important to explain the phase behaviour of soaps and surfactants but it helps in understanding of the product attributes too.  The different orientation of packing in solid soaps has led to the formation of different solid phases while in liquid phases, it is important to understand these associations to develop products in the form of isotropic solution of micelles (liquid soap, shampoo, shower gel etc). At higher concentrations with the formation of hexagonal and lamellar liquid crystalline phase there is an opportunity to develop products with high viscosity in the form of gel or flow able viscous liquids. 

The physical parameters such as Krafft Point, titer, iodine value are important for understanding of the product properties.