Palm fatty acid derived fabric softener / Muhamad Faizal Ahmad Fuad

Esterquat produced from tallow based fatty acid is one of the main ingredients of fabric softener used currently over the common distrearyl dimethyl ammonium compounds. This esterquat is also excellent in softening and neutralizing the fabric's surface static cling. However, there are three problems can be encountered which include the limitation of feedstock production, use of expensive catalyst, and use reactor system with high vacuum condition. The usage of distearyl dimethyl ammonium chloride gives excellent softening performance but have poor biodegradability. The purpose of this study is to produce palm fatty acid esterquat as an alternative to tallow based esterquat with substitution of chloride compounds in the esterquat structure to methosulphate compounds to become more environmental friendly fabric softener. The study involves the production of palm based esterquats and formulation of fabric softener. Esterquat synthesis is a two-step process; firstly, the distillate hydrogenated palm fatty acid is esterified with triethanolamine (TEA) to produce esteramine, and secondly, the esteramine is quaternized with dimethyl sulphate (DMS) to produce quaternized ester salt, which is termed as esterquat. In the reaction of esterification of palm fatty acid and TEA, the effectiveness of the catalyst is evaluated. The reaction was also carried out under slightly vacuum, nitrogen and argon blanket instead of high vacuum condition since catalyst is deactivated by the by-product water. The products are analyzed by using FT-IR, acid value, cationic matter of the active content. This synthesized esterquat are used for fabric softener formulation and tested using fabric softness evaluation by test panel scoring