Soap-Making Manual / A Practical Handbook on the Raw Materials, Their Manipulation, Analysis and Control in the Modern Soap Plant.

by Edgar George Thomssen

CHEMICAL CONSTANTS OF OILS AND FATS.

Besides the various physical properties of oils and fats, such as color, specific gravity, melting point, solubility, etc., they may be distinguished chemically by a number of chemical constants. These are the iodine number, the acetyl value, saponification number, Reichert-Meissl number for volatile acids, Hehner number for insoluble acids. These constants, while they vary somewhat with any particular oil or fat, are more applicable to the edible products and are criterions where any adulteration of fat or oil is suspected. The methods of carrying out the analyses of oils and fats to obtain these constants are given in the various texts[2] on oils and fats, and inasmuch as they are not of great importance to the soap industry they are merely mentioned here.