Making oleic acid from common ingredients

[Powerstrip]

Hello

 

I need oleic acid for a ferrofluid display. I have a mixture of omega oils which contains omega 3, 6, and 9 oils. 9 is the oleic acid.

 

Anyone know a method to extract the omega nine from the omega blend?

 

Anyother methods for creating oleic acid or any other type of surfactant?

Edited February 19, 2010 by Powerstrip
Forgot to specify

[UC]

Saponify either olive oil or high-oleic sunflower oil (not regular sunflower oil) with NaOH and water, then acidify the resulting soap. The water insoluble liquid that seperates is a mixture of the fatty acids that made up the oils, primarily oleic acid in the case of the two oils I mentioned. This can probably be used as is for ferrofluid.

 

Instructions for making soap are readily available online. You want to use an excess of NaOH though to ensure complete saponification, while these recipes will call for an excess of oils to make a mild soap for use on skin.

 

This is a handy calculator for figuring out amounts: http://www.soapcalc.net/calc/SoapCalcWP.asp

 

Be sure to set "superfat" to 0%, then add a bit extra NaOH on top of what they suggest