Palm-based alpha-sulfonated methyl esters (SME) were successfully produced using a 20 kg/h-capacity pilot plant at the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. This anionic surfactant was used as an active ingredient to formulate powder detergent. The production of palm-based powder detergents (PPD) was carried out at the pilot-plant scale. The performance of powder detergents formulated with SME was found to be excellent. At a total concentration of 0.8 g/L, good detergency of PPD was obtained when only using 12% to 18% SME, compared to the commercial detergent with 27% surface-active agent. The foaming power and wetting characteristics of PPD were also comparable to the values for the commercial detergent. The study has shown that PPD were able to biodegrade faster than the commercial detergent, where the maximum time period to reach the pass level (60%) is within 14 days. The toxicity of the PPD, which ranged from 5.66 to 8.0 mg/L, is similar to the toxicity of the commercial detergent. A detailed description of the SME application technologies in powder detergents and the properties of formulated powder detergents are highlighted in this paper.

Laboratory and pilot scale investigations were carried out on phosphate‐free detergent (PFD) formulations comprising binary anionic surfactants of C16 palm methyl ester sulfonates (C16MES) and linear alkyl benzene sulfonic acid (LABSA) with the aim of maximizing the incorporation of C16MES into low density detergent powders without compromising the detergency and other significant properties. Initial laboratory experiments revealed that the detergent powder resulting from C16MES/LABSA with a 50:50 ratio and pH 7–8 has acceptable detergency stability over 1 week of accelerated ageing test at 50 °C and 85 % relative humidity. Subsequent experiments were carried out in a 5‐kg/h‐capacity pilot spray dryer using PFD formulations of C16MES/LABSA over the whole range of weight ratios under the same pH of 7–8. The concentration of the detergent slurry and cleaning performance (detergency, foaming ability and wetting power) of the resulting spray dried detergent powder (SDDP) were evaluated. C16MES/LABSA in a 40:60 ratio was selected as the ideal formulation based on its optimum detergent slurry concentration and comparable cleaning performance against the control formulation. Further environmental tests have confirmed that SDDP obtained from the ideal formulation is readily biodegradable (60 % in 13 days) and exhibits low eco‐toxicity properties (LC50 of 11.3 mg/L).

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Due to the current environmental pressures and ever-rising prices of petrochemical feedstock, the detergent industry is gradually moving towards the development of green and eco-friendly products. However, besides the production cost, the challenge for today's detergent formulators still lies in increasing the quantity of green and eco-friendly surfactants in laundry detergent formulations without compromising their performance. Realizing this, research was undertaken to develop the Asian market preferred low-density laundry detergent powders by incorporating green palm oil based surfactant (known as MES) and also by eliminating the use of environmentally damaging phosphate-builders in the detergent formulation. Prior to commercialization of this newly developed eco-friendly low-density laundry detergent powder, a pilot survey was attempted over 112 respondents using mall-intercept approach in one of the popular shopping complex in Kuala Lumpur city with the aim to study consumers' preferences (format, brand, origin) and their purchasing behaviour (awareness/knowledge and perception) towards both commercial and MES based laundry detergent powders. The pilot survey results have indicated that the majority of respondents has high affinity towards green and environmental benefits offered by MES based laundry detergent powders. These positive results imply huge market potential for MES based laundry detergent powders and through effective marketing strategies and product awareness activities, this product is likely to attain success in the marketplace.

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Droplet spreading behaviour over a porous surface is a complex phenomenon, and is a basic component of many industrial processes, for example the spray coating process. The coating process has wide applications and this includes coating of urea fertilizer to produce slow release urea. The quality of coating film in such applications is affected by many factors, one of them being droplet spreading on the substrate. Droplet spreading behaviour is affected by process parameters such as viscosity, density, surface tension, impact velocity, porosity, etc. Droplet spreading on a porous surface involves penetration into the porous surface and spreading on the surface. Previously, the effect of individual process parameters has been studied. The current work aims at finding the interactive effect of process parameters on droplet spreading behaviour by using response surface methodology. The combined effect of liquid viscosity, impact velocity, and surface porosity has been studied on contact angle, spreading factor, and residual drop volume. The results show that minimum contact angle can be achieved with maximum impact velocity, minimum porosity, and minimal liquid viscosity. Similar behaviour was observed with droplet residual volume. Maximum spreading factor was attained at minimum viscosity and porosity while impact velocity was at maximum level.

Dissolutive spreading over a porous surface is a phenomenon involving spreading, penetration, as well as dissolution. Droplet spreading forms the basis of numerous industrial operations including the spray coating of urea fertilizer to produce slow release urea. The slow release characteristics of urea highly depend on the coating uniformity that can be achieved by sound knowledge of droplet spreading behaviour over the urea surface. Since numerous waterborne coating materials are being studied presently, dissolutive wetting of the urea surface has been investigated in the current work. Response surface methodology has been utilized to study the interactive effects of process parameters on the dissolutive wetting of an aqueous glycerin solution on a porous urea surface. The effect of impact velocity, surface porosity, and urea solubility has been investigated on three response objectives namely contact angle, spreading factor, and normalized residual drop volume. The results have been compared with an earlier work performed under similar conditions for non-dissolutive wetting. The comparison reveals that dissolutive wetting shows lesser optimum contact angle (81 %) and greater optimum spreading factor (21 %) as compared to non-dissolutive wetting.

Offshore crude oil exploration has led to oil spillage in the sea and causes an enormous negative impact on the surrounding environment, animals and human beings. In this paper, studies have been carried out to utilize Malaysian grown Kenaf core fibers as biosorbent material to clean-up the spilled oil from the sea. Kenaf fibers have natural oleophilic characteristics and therefore would be suitable to be used as biosorbent material. Studies were conducted to understand the surface characteristics, to evaluate the absorption capacity under simulated sea conditions and to determine oil/seawater sorption characteristics of Malaysia grown Kenaf core fibers. The crude oil/seawater absorption capacity study has indicated that both 20 mesh and 40 mesh Kenaf fibers can absorb 4 times its original weight in crude oil upon short contact time with crude oil/seawater. This study also reveals that the Kenaf fibers tend to absorb seawater upon prolonged contact with crude oil/seawater. Based on the separate crude oil and seawater sorption tests, both 20 mesh and 40 mesh Kenaf core fibers were found to have the ability to absorb 5-6 times and 1-6 times of its original weight in crude oil and seawater respectively, depending on the contact time.