Hand dish washing detergents remove food soils, hold soil in suspension as well as provide long-lasting suds to indicate how much cleaning power is left in the wash water. They are available as liquids, gels, powders and solids. MPOB has developed a firm, mild, good performing, low-smear solid dish washing product from palm sulphonated methyl esters (SME). Palm SME (Figure 1) is an anionic surfactant made from an oleochemical from palm oil, and is, therefore, environmental-friendly. It degrades faster and better than linear alkyl benzene sulphonates (LAS) (Figure 2). In addition, palm SME has good calcium tolerance, thus, greater detergency and less sensitivity to water hardness than other anionic surfactants.

Main Research: Zulina Maurad