Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD)
Also: PFAD, Palm oil fatty acid distillate, Palm oil deodoriser distillate (physical refining).
Published values
| Saponification value | 195.23–219.64 mg KOH/g (typical 205.71) |
| Used by the calculator | 205.7 mg KOH/g (typical) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1466 g/g |
| Iodine value | 38.49–63.1 g I₂/100 g (typical 51.24) |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 154 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | 1.34 % |
A bar made of 100 % Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD)
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 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lauric acid | C12:0 · saturated | ≤ 0.08 | 0.0 |
| Myristic acid | C14:0 · saturated | 0.26–0.75 (typical 0.42) | 0.4 |
| Palmitic acid | C16:0 · saturated | 38.63–45.3 (typical 41.25) | 41.3 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 5.93–9.87 (typical 7.29) | 7.3 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 33.54–44.05 | 38.8 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 7.57–10.18 (typical 8.95) | 9.0 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 0.11–0.44 (typical 0.27) | 0.3 |
| Gadoleic acid | C20:1 | ≤ 0.13 | 0.0 |
| Behenic acid | C22:0 · saturated | ≤ 0.12 | 0.1 |
| Lignoceric acid | C24:0 · saturated | ≤ 0.08 | 0.1 |
Where these numbers come from
Abstract, section 3.1 text, Table 1 (physicochemical characteristics: moisture, FFA, IV, PV, SV; range and mean per sample), Table 2 (fatty acid composition, range and mean per sample) and Table 3 (SFA/USFA/MUFA/PUFA subtotals). Read with pdftotext -raw, which keeps each table row on one line; the -layout text separates the row labels from their values. The plus/minus sign between each mean and its standard deviation extracts as a stray modifier letter, so a cell reads as the mean, that letter, then the SD.
Table 2 (chemical analyses of the experimental fats), PFAD column: moisture, insoluble impurities, unsaponifiable matter, fatty acid composition (normalised area %), lipid classes, tocopherols and tocotrienols. Read from the Europe PMC JATS XML (https://www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc/webservices/rest/PMC8067497/fullTextXML), flattened to one table row per line. Source of unsaponifiablePercent only; its fatty acids are quoted in notes as a check.
Palm fatty acid distillate is the fatty-acid stream stripped from palm oil in the deodoriser during physical refining: mostly free fatty acids, with some glycerides and the volatile minor components (tocopherols, tocotrienols, sterols, squalene). Primary source: Chang et al. (2016) took PFAD twice, on different processing dates, from each of five palm oil processing plants in Hyderabad and Karachi, Pakistan, and analysed each sample three times (AOCS methods: moisture Aa 3-38, free fatty acids Aa 6-38, iodine value Cd 1-25 by Wijs, saponification value Cd 3-25, peroxide value Cd 8-53; methyl esters by IUPAC 2.301 and GC-MS on an HP-5MS column). All five were reddish-brown semisolids at room temperature. Saponification value 195.23-219.64 mg KOH/g, mean 205.71 (sample means 209.70, 203.60, 200.39, 195.23 and 219.64; for PFAD-2 the table prints a range of 205.10-206.30 beside a mean of 203.60, outside its own range). Iodine value 38.49-63.10 g I2/100 g, mean 51.24 (sample means 63.10, 38.49, 50.33, 46.16, 58.11). Free fatty acids 65.70-94.68 % (sample means 65.70, 94.68, 85.42, 90.21, 78.23; the text gives an overall mean of 80.19, which is not the mean of those five figures, and does not say which acid the free fatty acids are expressed as). Moisture 0.06-7.50 %, peroxide value 1.09-16.50 meq/kg. Fatty acids, Table 2 sample means for PFAD-1 to PFAD-5 (ND = not detected): lauric 0.01, 0.04, 0.08, 0.02, ND; myristic 0.26, 0.28, 0.75, 0.46, 0.37; palmitic 38.63, 45.30, 40.76, 39.09, 42.45; stearic 8.07, 9.87, 5.93, 6.45, 6.12; oleic (C18:1 n9) 44.05, 33.54, 41.54, 43.48, 42.14; C18:1 n11 0.25, 0.37, 0.93, 0.87, 0.74; linoleic 8.46, 10.18, 9.3, 9.22, 7.57; eicosenoic (C20:1 n11) ND, 0.03, 0.13, ND, 0.05; arachidic 0.11, 0.21, 0.44, 0.22, 0.36; docosanoic (behenic) 0.09, 0.12, 0.07, ND, 0.07; tetracosanoic (lignoceric) 0.07, ND, 0.07, 0.04, 0.08. Recorded ranges are the lowest and highest sample mean, which is how the authors summarise palmitic (38.63-45.30) and oleic (33.54-44.05); typicals are the authors' overall means from the abstract (lauric 0.04, myristic 0.42, palmitic 41.25, stearic 7.29, linoleic 8.95, eicosenoic 0.04, arachidic 0.27, docosanoic 0.07, tetracosanoic 0.05); where a sample was ND no minimum is recorded. The abstract's 41.58 % 'oleic' is C18:1 n9 and n11 together, so oleic carries no typical; only the n9 row is mapped to oleic, and the C18:1 n11 isomer (0.25-0.93) is not mapped. The C20:1 n11 row is mapped to gadoleic. The pairing of values to acids in the table was checked against the paper's own subtotals (Table 3, PFAD-1: SFA 47.24, MUFA 44.30, PUFA 8.46). Linolenic acid is not reported. Second source, for unsaponifiable matter and as a check: Jimenez-Moya et al. (2021) analysed the PFAD used in a broiler feeding trial: fatty acids (normalised area %) C16:0 46.59, C18:0 6.62, C18:1 n-9 34.96, C18:2 n-6 8.49, C18:3 n-3 0.29, minor fatty acids 3.05, trans-C18:1 0.22; lipid classes free fatty acids 92.94, triacylglycerols 4.01, diacylglycerols 3.04, monoacylglycerols not detected; unsaponifiable matter 1.34 g/100 g (AOCS Ca 6b-53), recorded as 1.34 %; insoluble impurities 3.76 g/100 g; moisture 0.01 g/100 g; tocopherols 42.79 and tocotrienols 52.59 mg/kg. Its palmitic sits just above the Pakistani band and its stearic, oleic and linoleic inside it; it was not merged into the ranges. For a soapmaker the free fatty acids are neutralised by lye on contact rather than saponified, and the saponification value covers both them and the glycerides. meltingPointC is null because neither document gives a melting point. Checked and not used: two MPOB Journal of Oil Palm Research papers on PFAD (phytosterol extraction; enzymatic esterification, both 2020) carry no PFAD fatty-acid table, and Wilmar's oleochemical product pages list no PFAD specification. No source prints an INCI name. CosIng's nearest entry, Palm Acid ('Fatty acids, palm-oil'), is not assigned: PFAD is a refining by-product that also carries glycerides, tocols and sterols, and no document consulted calls it Palm Acid, 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.