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Monsavon Continuous Process

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Fazal Ur Rahman
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15 views

Monsavon Continuous Process

Uploaded by

Fazal Ur Rahman
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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MONSAVON CONTINUOUS PROCESS FOR SOAP MANUFACTURE.

It was developed by the French company Monsavon, which was founded in 1920 and is now part
of Unilever.
The Monsavon continuous process is another type of continuous soap making process that
involves the saponification of fats using a falling film reactor.
The Monsavon process has some advantages over the De Laval process, such as:
1. Lower steam consumption and operating cost.
Higher glycerol recovery and quality.
2. Less corrosion and maintenance.
3. More flexibility and versatility.
The Monsavon process consists of four main steps:
1. Pre-treatment: The fats are melted, filtered, and mixed with water to form an emulsion.
2. Saponification: The emulsion is sprayed onto the inner wall of a vertical tube, where it flows
downward as a thin film. Steam and caustic soda are injected into the tube, creating a counter-
current flow. The saponification reaction takes place quickly and produces soap and glycerol.
3. Separation: The soap-glycerol mixture is sent to a centrifuge, where it is separated into two
phases: a lighter soap phase and a heavier glycerol phase. The soap phase is further purified by
washing with water and salt solution.
4. Finishing: The soap is dried, cooled, and extruded into pellets or noodles. The soap can then be
milled, plodded, stamped, or packaged according to the desired product.
The Monsavon Process
The saponification step of the Monsavon process, fat and caustic soda solutions are metered by variable
stroke piston pumps I and 2 continuously into a colloid mill. The finely dispersed mixture flows down
through the reaction tube without further agitation into the soap kettle, where very mild agitation is
kept and the saponified mixture is pumped from the bottom of the soap kettle by metering pump 3 and
then passes to the washing stages of the process.
The concentration of the caustic soda solution is adjusted so that the mixture will have a
composition. In other words, the soap mass is in the neat soap phase.
The ratio of fat and caustic soda fed to the colloid mill must be accurately controlled to have enough
caustic soda in the mixture to have sufficiently saponified the fat and at the same time is not of such an
excess as to result in an uneconomical waste of caustic soda. There is no mechanism for the use of any
excess caustic soda in the spent lye. Complete saponification is obtained if approximately an excess of
4% of caustic soda is used.
The intimate contact provided in the colloid mill reduces to a short time the induction period
whereas the mild agitation occurring in the streamlined flow through the reaction tube and in the soap
kettle is sufficient to continue the reaction after enough soap has been formed to act as a catalyst. The
reaction tube and the soap kettle have a cubicle content sufficient to support a retention time of
approximately an hour.
All the heat of the reaction, including that of diluting the caustic soda with the liberated glycerin,
is still in the reaction mass so that if the fat is fed to the colloid mill at approximately 160 Fo the
completely reacted soap mass will have a temperature between 200 and 220o Fo.
The reaction tube and soap kettle are jacketed, and hot water is circulated through the jackets so that
their contents may be kept hot and fluid if flow of fat and caustic are stopped for a time.

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