| dc.description.abstract | Soap and detergent have widely been used as cleaning product at various activities, such as laundry, warewashing, janitorial, domestic, transportation, commercial activity, and metal industry. One of important compiler substances in soap and detergent formulation is surfactant. According to Matheson (1996), there are four general types of surfactant namely anionic, nonionic, cationic, and amphoteric. Methyl ester sulfonates (MES) is one of anionic surfactant types, which have been being developed in recent years. Test in the laboratory indicates that biodegradation of MES (methyl ester sulfonates) is similar to AS (alcohol sulfate) and soap, but faster than that of LAS (linear alkylbenzene sulfonate). However, the problem is the sulfonation process still produces undesired sulfonated soap by-product, often called di-salt. Therefore, it is important to purify MES (methyl ester sulfonates) to reduce the content of di-salt in order to improve the performance of MES (methyl ester sulfonates) as surfactant. The aims of this research are knowing the differences of characteristics of unpurified MES and purified MES, obtaining the best condition purification process of MES, kno wing the effect of the purification process of MES on the characteristics of detergent powders and obtaining the best concentration of MES in the formulation of detergent powders. In this research, the purification process was done by addition of methanol at the certain concentration and reaction time. The effects of methanol concentration (factor K) and reaction time (factor t) were assessed in Completely Factorial Randomized Design with two factors. Each factor consisted of four levels (10, 20, 30 and 40 % for factor K and 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes for factor t). The parameters measured on this step were pH, surface and interfacial tension, emulsion stability, foam stability, and detergency. Meanwhile, the effects of purification process on the characteristics of detergent powders were assessed in completely factorial randomized design with two factors that are the kind of MES (unpurified MES and purified MES) and MES concentrations. MES concentrations used in this design were 15, 20 and 25 %. The parameters measured on this step were pH, moisture content, bulk density, detergency, emulsion stability, water insoluble substance and whiteness. Based on the results, it showed that unpurified MES had the following characteristics: pH value of 4,98, surface tension 30,6 mN/m (46,36 %), interfacial tension 31,1 mN/m (87,99 %) to 34,70 mN/m (98,02 %), emulsion stability 15,96 %, foam stability 0,38 hours, and detergency 25,84 %. Meanwhile, the characteristics of purified MES were pH value of 3,95 to 4,93 (MES before neutralized) and 6,92 to 7,67 (MES after neutralized), surface tension 31,45 mN/m (47,72 %) to 42,25 mN/m (64,11 %), interfacial tension 31,85 mN/m (89,97 %) to 34,70 mN/m (98,02 %), emulsion stability 16,67 % to 84,52 %, foam stability 0,41 hours to 3,84 hours, and detergency 26,28 % to 87,22 %. Based on the results, it showed that methanol concentration 40 % and reaction time 90 minutes performed the best condition of purification process. The characteristics of MES obtained from this best condition were: pH value before neutralized 3,95 and after neutralized 6,92, surface tension 42,25 mN/m (64,11 %), interfacial tension 34,7 mN/m (98,02 %), emulsion stability 84,52 %, foam stability 3,84 hours, and detergency 87,22 %. The results of physical and chemical analysis of detergent powders showed that detergent powders with unpurified MES had different characteristics from detergent powders with purified MES. Detergent powders with unpurified MES had the following characteristics: pH value 10,86 to 10,97, moisture content 6,04 % to 7,57 %, bulk density 0,415 g/ml to 0,448 g/ml, detergency 34,1 % to 47,12 %, emulsion stability 39,19 % to 47,44 %, water insoluble substance 2,81 % to 5,11 % and whiteness 79,5 to 82,5. Meanwhile, detergent powders with purified MES had the following characteristics; pH value 10,62 to 10,77, moisture content 5,11 % to 6,07 %, bulk density 0,329 g/ml to 0,396 g/ml, detergency 73,77 % to 88,26 %, emulsion stability 75, 32 % to 89,02 %, water insoluble substances 1,79 % to 3,68 % and whiteness 84,5 to 87,5. Based on the results of detergency and emulsion stability, it can be concluded that the best concentration in formulation of detergent powders was 25 % of purified MES. The characteristics obtained were pH value 10,62, moisture content (wet basis) 6,07 %, water insoluble substances 3,68 %, emulsion stability 89,02 %, detergency 88,26 %, whiteness 84, 5, and bulk density 0,396 g/ml. | id |
