Neem Oil
Also: Azadirachta indica seed oil, Neem seed oil, Margosa oil, Nimtree oil.
Published values
| Saponification value | 159.68–194.6 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 177.1 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1263 g/g |
| Iodine value | 74.9–150 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 65 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | — |
A bar made of 100 % Neem Oil
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 | 12–18.85 (typ. 18.1) | 18.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 4.1–14.99 (typ. 14.97) | 15.0 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 28–41.33 (typ. 41.33) | 41.3 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 18.6–46 (typ. 18.6) | 18.6 |
| α-Linolenic acid | C18:3 n-3 | 5.5 | 5.5 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.78 | 0.8 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | 0.14–0.21 (typ. 0.14) | 0.1 |
Where these numbers come from
Table 2 physicochemical properties (density, acid value, iodine value, saponification value, ester value, molecular weight, free fatty acids) per extraction solvent; Table 3 GC-MS fatty-acid composition per solvent. PDF fetched and text-extracted locally.
Table 1 physicochemical properties of a commercial neem oil (free fatty acids, acidity, peroxide value; calculated iodine and saponification values, not used); Table 2 fatty-acid composition; Table 4 literature fatty-acid values.
PRIMARY source: Recycling 2023 (MDPI, open access; PDF fetched from MDPI's file server), Indian neem seed oil Soxhlet-extracted with four solvents, n = 3. Table 2 MEASURED values (titration / Wijs) for hexane (H), hexane-methanol 1:1 (HM), ethanol (Et) and hexane-ethanol 1:1 (HEt) extracts respectively: saponification value 159.68 / 194.60 / 184.78 / 186.35 (printed as 'g KOH/100 g', i.e. mg KOH/g), iodine value 74.9 / 131.92 / 75.00 / 150.00 g I2/100 g, acid value 6.73 / 7.93 / 6.24 / 8.48 mg KOH/g, density 0.87 / 0.80 / 0.92 / 0.83 g/cm3, ester value 152.95 / 186.67 / 178.54 / 177.87, free fatty acids 3.38 / 3.98 / 3.13 / 4.26 %. The SAP and IV min/max in this record are the spread of those four columns; the hexane and ethanol oils, which the paper says match commercial neem oil (it cites a commercial iodine range of 65-80 g I2/100 g and a commercial saponification range of 175-205 mg KOH/g, and other studies at 167-195), gave IV 74.9-75.0 and SAP 159.68-184.78, while the two mixed-solvent extracts gave the high iodine values (co-extracted polar material). Table 3 fatty acids (GC-MS area %) H / HM / Et / HEt: palmitic 18.10 / 13.55 / 18.85 / 15.12, stearic 14.97 / 11.47 / 14.99 / 14.88, arachidic 0.78 / 1.87 / nd / 1.03, behenic 0.14 / 5.42 / 0.21 / nd, lignoceric nd / 4.74 / nd / nd, oleic 41.33 / 16.86 / 41.08 / 39.48, linoleic 18.60 / 5.04 / 20.22 / 12.41, others 6.08 / 27.31 / 3.93 / 13.34. The 'typical' fatty-acid values here are the hexane column; ranges use the hexane and ethanol columns plus the ADDITIONAL document, Lipidology 2025 (MDPI), Table 2, a commercial neem oil analysed at UNICAMP: palmitic 12, stearic 4.1, oleic 28, linoleic 46, linolenic 5.5 % (SFA 16, MUFA 28, PUFA 51), free fatty acids 2.0 %, acidity 3.9 mg KOH/g, peroxide 3.2 mEq/kg, triacylglycerols 98 %. That sample's low stearic / high linoleic content is atypical against the literature the same paper tabulates (Table 4: palmitic 15.6-18.7, stearic 16.7-21.3, oleic 41.9-49.9, linoleic 12.8-19.6, linolenic 0.3-0.5 %), so it is used only for the range end-points and for linolenic (not detected in the Recycling study). Lipidology 2025 also prints iodine value 116 +/- 12 g I2/100 g and saponification value 198 +/- 8 mg KOH/g, but both are explicitly CALCULATED from the fatty-acid composition (AOCS Cd 1c-85 / Cd 3a-94), so they are excluded from the SAP/IV fields. Unsaponifiable matter and melting point were not reported in either document (neem oil is typically semi-solid below about 20 C, but no allowed source printed a value). 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.