Stearic acid?

[chilled_fluorine]

Anybody know how I could make at least 10 grams of stearic acid? Somewhere else on this forum it said you could cool vegetable oil and filter it out. Apparently, vegetable oil is 5-ish% stearic acid. Could I make it from vegetable oil? Help would be appreciated.In advance:No, I don't plan to make drugs, bombs, poison, or anything DEA controlled with it.I plan on making non-spiky ferrofluid with it. I'm a boss at making ferrofluid, so all of mine spikes excellently, but now I need some that doesn't. No, I can't use oleic acid for the ferrofluid. All my oleic fluids spike, no matter what I do. Apparently, stearic results in a slightly more viscous fluid. I also got a few mills of non spiky from it once, but now I'm out of stearic acid.

[John Cuthber]

You would do better to start from an animal fat, rather than a vegetable oil as the saturated fat content is generally higher.

 

If you add a dilute acid to an ordinary soap you will get a mixture of fatty acids. fractional crystallisation can get a reasonable yield of a product that, while not pure, will raise the viscosity of oleic acid.

[chilled_fluorine]

You would do better to start from an animal fat, rather than a vegetable oil as the saturated fat content is generally higher.

 

If you add a dilute acid to an ordinary soap you will get a mixture of fatty acids. fractional crystallisation can get a reasonable yield of a product that, while not pure, will raise the viscosity of oleic acid.

 

So, dissolve a bar of soap in water, add dilute h2so4, then crystallize?If you only get slightly more from animal fat, I would prefer to use vegi oil. I get bucket loads of the stuff for free. Could you please provide some specifics about how I could make it from vegi oil? Thanks for the help.

[Enthalpy]

Stearic acid is a commercial product. Why should you make 10 grams of it?

[John Cuthber]

"If you only get slightly more from animal fat, I would prefer to use vegi oil. "

if the difference was slight I'd not have mentioned it.

[chilled_fluorine]

Stearic acid is a commercial product. Why should you make 10 grams of it?

 

Well, I don't know where to buy it, and even if I did, I wouldn't, I'm a bit of a DIY freak... I want the stuff for ferrofluid lube.

 

"If you only get slightly more from animal fat, I would prefer to use vegi oil. "

if the difference was slight I'd not have mentioned it.

 

Okay, the way you said it just made it sound like a not-so-significant difference to me. Sorry. Anyways, I have a few reasons why I don't want to use "animal oil". To start, I honestly don't think I have enough animal oil to make the amount of stearic I need. If, in the future, I needed more, it would be nice to use vegi oil, as I have a near endless supply of it. (therefore any reasonable yield is acceptable to me) I get vegi oil for free, and cheaper is better. It's a way to recycle the oil as well, as otherwise it would be discarded, and screw the environment. Finally, using animal oil is *sort of* against my personal philosophy. I make an effort to use animals and their direct byproducts only as food, or when absolutely necessary. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those treehugger vegans, I just try to live with the land whenever I can. With that being said, would you care to provide some more details, for either oil?(vegetable oil is still my preference, but beggars can't be choosers) Help would be appreciated.

[John Cuthber]

OK, fair enough, from my point of view animal fat is a waste product that I have to get rid of, your point of view differs.

The problem is that plants generally make unsaturated fats rather than saturated ones.

 

Palm oil and coconut oil have relatively high levels of saturated fats but they are predominantly shorter chain than stearic.

Why do you want stearic acid in particular?

[chilled_fluorine]

OK, fair enough, from my point of view animal fat is a waste product that I have to get rid of, your point of view differs.

The problem is that plants generally make unsaturated fats rather than saturated ones.

 

Palm oil and coconut oil have relatively high levels of saturated fats but they are predominantly shorter chain than stearic.

Why do you want stearic acid in particular?

 

If an animal product would be thrown away if not used for a non-food purpose, I will gladly use it. Better than it going to waste. Again, just about any yield is acceptable to me, because I have so much oil. (2 plastic 55 gallom drums full right now, plus some extra) But its all vegi. Well, I'm no organic chemist, but it seems like stearic acid would be the easiest to make, as I've heard it can be made from vegi oil. Plus I know for sure it works for my application. If you know of anything better, suggestions would be appreciated. So, you know anything about getting it from vegi oil?