Oils

Karanja Oil

Also: Pongamia pinnata seed oil, Millettia pinnata seed oil, Pongamia oil, Pongam oil, Honge oil.

The saponification value here is derived, not published. No primary document we could use gives one for Karanja Oil, so it is calculated from this record's own fatty-acid composition: chain lengths fix the molar mass, which fixes how much hydroxide a gram of fat consumes. That gives 192.5 mg KOH/g, ±3 %.

That is stoichiometry on a measured composition rather than a guess, and it is about as well determined as a published figure: checked against the 35 Codex oils where both fields come from the same standard, the method's median error is 0.90 % and its 90th percentile 2.74 %, with no meaningful bias. The formula page shows the working. If you have a certificate of analysis for your lot, enter its measured value in the calculator and this estimate is set aside.

Published values

Saponification value	not published
Derived from composition	192.5 ± 3 % mg KOH/g
Used by the calculator	192.5 mg KOH/g (derived)
SAP for NaOH	0.1372 g/g
Iodine value	—
INS (SAP − IV)	—
Melting point	—
Unsaponifiable matter	—

A bar made of 100 % Karanja Oil

Hardness 17 below 29–54

Cleansing 0 below 12–22

Conditioning 79 above 44–69

Bubbly lather 0 below 14–46

Creamy lather 17 16–48

Conventional qualities summed from the fatty-acid groups; a single-oil bar is a reference point, not a recipe.

Fatty-acid profile

Fatty acid		Published range, %	Used
Palmitic acid	C16:0 · saturated	7.82–15.49	11.7
Stearic acid	C18:0 · saturated	0.42–10.61	5.5
Oleic acid	C18:1	34.34–74.58	54.5
Linoleic acid	C18:2	10.07–31.28	20.7
α-Linolenic acid	C18:3 n-3	0.16–7.27	3.7

Where these numbers come from

Springer (Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants), open-access copy via PubMed Central — Seed traits, fatty acid profile and genetic diversity assessment in Pongamia pinnata (L.) Pierre germplasm (Sharma S.S., Islam M.A., Malik A.A., Kumar K., Negi M.S., Tripathi S.B.; Physiol. Mol. Biol. Plants 2016, 22(2):193-205; DOI 10.1007/s12298-016-0356-0) · document dated 2016-05-20 · read 2026-09-20

Table 4 fatty-acid composition ranges across 38 accessions; oil content range; statement that SN/IV were calculated from FAME composition (not used here).

Fatty-acid ranges are from the open-access germplasm study (Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants 2016), Table 4: 38 Indian Pongamia pinnata accessions analysed by GC, min-max across accessions (palmitic 7.82-15.49, stearic 0.42-10.61, oleic 34.34-74.58, linoleic 10.07-31.28, linolenic 0.16-7.27 %); seed oil content 20.20-40.28 %. The abstract notes oleic acid as the major acid and that 'a substantial amount of erucic acid was also detected', but no erucic, arachidic, eicosenoic, behenic or lignoceric ranges were printed, so those keys are omitted. Saponification value and iodine value are NULL: the same paper prints saponification number 186.99-201.25 and iodine value 81.13-108.19, but for the fatty-acid METHYL ESTERS and explicitly 'calculated using FAMEs composition of oil', not measured on the oil, and this dataset's rules exclude computed values. No open-access primary document with MEASURED SAP/IV for crude karanja oil could be opened in this session (Springer/JAOCS/ScienceDirect papers were paywalled or returned HTTP 403; university-repository and FAO pages are outside the allowed source list). Karanja oil is non-edible (contains karanjin and pongamol) and is used in soap mainly for its insecticidal/antiseptic reputation. Melting point not given (liquid oil). INCI not verified on CosIng in this session, left 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.