Sal Butter
INCI Shorea Robusta Seed Butter. Also: Sal fat, Sal seed fat, Shorea robusta seed butter, Sal seed butter.
Published values
| Saponification value | 180–195 mg KOH/g |
| Used by the calculator | 187.5 mg KOH/g (midpoint) |
| SAP for NaOH | 0.1337 g/g |
| Iodine value | 31–45 g I₂/100 g |
| INS (SAP − IV) | 150 |
| Melting point | — |
| Unsaponifiable matter | ≤ 2.5 % |
A bar made of 100 % Sal Butter
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 | 9.1 | 9.1 |
| Stearic acid | C18:0 · saturated | 43.7 | 43.7 |
| Oleic acid | C18:1 | 36.9 | 36.9 |
| Linoleic acid | C18:2 | 1.6 | 1.6 |
| Arachidic acid | C20:0 · saturated | 8.6 | 8.6 |
Where these numbers come from
Fatty-acid composition of refined sal fat, measured: stearic 43.7, oleic 36.9, palmitic 9.1, arachidic 8.6, linoleic 1.6 %. Sums to 99.9 %. Arachidic acid at this level is the expected hallmark of a Dipterocarpaceae seed fat.
GC fatty-acid composition table under optimized extraction conditions; source of the fattyAcidsPercent field. Its own saponification value (172.08 mg KOH/g) and citation of a '35-38 C' melting point (attributed by the paper itself to prior literature, not its own measurement) were NOT used in the structured fields - see notes.
NOT used for the fatty-acid fields. Its Table 5 labels a 6.86 % row 'gamma-linolenic acid' and contains no arachidic acid row at all, which is the signature of a mislabelled GC peak: gamma-linolenic acid is not known from any Dipterocarpaceae seed fat, while arachidic acid is a hallmark of them. Its other majors (stearic 45.06, oleic 38.23, palmitic 5.95, linoleic 1.95) are close to the values used here.
SAP, iodine and unsaponifiable-matter fields are the FSSAI (India) regulatory standard for 'Refined salseed fat' (Chapter 2.2, item 6): saponification value 180-195, iodine value (Wijs) 31-45, unsaponifiable matter not more than 2.5 %, free fatty acids (as oleic) not more than 0.25 %, 9:10-epoxy and 9:10-dihydroxystearic acid not more than 3.0 %. FATTY ACIDS are from Sundaravalli et al. 1978, measured on refined sal fat. CORRECTION, 2026-09-21: an earlier version of this record took its fatty acids from Thapa et al. 2025, which reports gamma-linolenic acid at 6.86 % and no arachidic acid. Verification against independent primary sources found that arachidic acid sits at roughly 6-9 % in sal fat and is a hallmark of the family (Sundaravalli 1978 measured 8.6 %; Reddy & Prabhakar 1990 describe sal triglycerides as glycerides of C16, C18 and C20 acids), while no source reports gamma-linolenic acid in any Dipterocarpaceae seed fat. The 6.86 % row in Thapa et al. is therefore taken to be a mislabelled arachidic peak. Rather than relabel another author's table, this record now uses a source that does not carry the anomaly; the Thapa paper is kept in the provenance with the reason it was set aside.
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.