Kapok Seed Oil
Also: Ceiba pentandra seed oil, Kapok oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | not published |
| Iodine value | — |
| INS (SAP − IV) | — |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
A bar made of 100 % Kapok Seed Oil
The soap qualities are derived from the fatty-acid profile, which is below. They are shown here only for records the calculator can use.
Fatty-acid profile
| Fatty acid | Published range, % | Used | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.3 | 0.3 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 22–24.3 (typical 24.3) | 24.3 |
| Palmitoleic acid | C16:1 | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 2.7–3.8 (typical 2.7) | 2.7 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 21–23.24 (typical 21.9) | 21.9 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 33.63–38.9 (typical 38.9) | 38.9 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.4–0.46 (typical 0.4) | 0.4 |
Where these numbers come from
GLC area-%; #10158 supplies the typical values. Datasets #13413, #14296, #10302 (a duplicate of #10140) and #23008 on the same page are not used.
Weight-% composition used for min/max; the four 1977 Russian GC-manual entries on the same page are not used.
Seed oil of the kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra, from PlantFAdb tabulations (plants 10693 and 13598). The 'typical' column is #10158, 'The characteristics of the kapok (Ceiba pentadra, Gaertn.) seed oil' (1979; SOFA TAB_003857), 28.0 % oil: myristic 0.3, palmitoleic 0.4, palmitic 24.3, linoleic 38.9, oleic 21.9, stearic 2.7, behenic 0.4 %, plus malvalic acid (8,9-cyclopropene-18:1) 7.2 % and sterculic acid (9,10-cyclopropene-19:1) 3.0 % (sum 99.1). Min/max add #23169, 'Physicochemical and antioxidant characteristics of kapok (Ceiba pentandra Gaertn.) seed oil' (2014), 27.5 % oil, weight-%: palmitic 22.37, malvalic 9.14, linoleic 33.63, oleic 23.24, stearic 3.8, sterculic 2.58, behenic 0.46 % (95.22); and #10140, 'Determination of cyclopropenoic and cyclopropanoic fatty acids in cottonseed and kapok seed oils by gas-liquid chromatography' (1981, as quoted in Gunstone's Lipid Handbook): palmitic 22, linoleic 37, malvalic 8, oleic 21, dihydromalvalic 1, stearic 3, sterculic 4, dihydrosterculic 1 % (97). THE PROFILE SUMS TO ONLY ABOUT 89 %: the cyclopropene acids (malvalic plus sterculic, 10-12 % in all three analyses) and their dihydro forms have no key in this schema. They are esterified in the triglyceride like any other acid, so the missing 11 % is lye-consuming fat, not a gap in the analysis. Because the keyed profile is below the 95 % floor, the build cannot derive a saponification value and the record ships as reference only; no allowed document opened here prints a saponification or iodine value for this oil. NOT USED: other PlantFAdb rows for Ceiba pentandra disagree with these three and with each other (palmitic 10-40.5 %, from a 1971 deacidification paper, four entries of a 1977 Russian GC manual and a 2013 biodiesel comparison), and an open-access 2026 biodiesel study (Selvam et al., Sci. Rep. 16:16304) reports kapok oils from three altitudes whose palmitate ranges from 24 to 41 % and whose text and table disagree, so none of those figures are used. FOR SOAP: about a quarter palmitic acid, so firmer than most liquid seed oils, with linoleic as the main unsaturated acid. CosIng lists no INCI name for kapok seed oil (only Ceiba Pentandra Fiber Powder), so inci is null.
This record is part of the open ingredient database (ODbL). Found an error or a better primary source? The dataset is on GitHub; corrections with a document link are welcome.