Another Sodium Citrate post.....

[Steve85569]

Rather than necro posting on a thread that's two years plus old I thought I'd pick up here.

The old thread is about making sodium Citrate ( for a chelator) from baking soda and citric acid.

I figured that since I had some citric acid and lye and live fairly close to Ace I'd use lye for the process.
I used less water than was used with backing soda just because everything would be dissolved. Measured (weighed) the citric acid and added it to 1.75 times that much water ( example would be 100 grams of citric and 175 grams of water).

Then I multiplied the weight of the citric acid by 0.624 to get the weight of lye ( sodium hydroxide). I did combine the lye very slowly with the pitcher in a cold water bath ( sink). This is a very exothermic reaction and will boil water if you are not careful!!!

Now for the fun part. I put the salty water in a stainless pan and brought it up to a very slow simmer. Jan thinks I'm slightly off any way so she's not too surprised that I cooking water. Especially since this solution is clear.

After a few minutes it begins to look like milk as the amount of water decreases to the point that the salt cannot stay in suspension. Then it thickens. Finally I put a very thick paste on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and slid it all in the oven on warm.

I now have a pint of sodium citrate in my soaping cabinet!

It is safer to use the baking soda!!!!
If you decide to try this with lye be very careful!!!

Steve

 

[SoapTrey]

Rather than necro posting on a thread that's two years plus old I thought I'd pick up here.

The old thread is about making sodium Citrate ( for a chelator) from baking soda and citric acid.

I figured that since I had some citric acid and lye and live fairly close to Ace I'd use lye for the process.
I used less water than was used with backing soda just because everything would be dissolved. Measured (weighed) the citric acid and added it to 1.75 times that much water ( example would be 100 grams of citric and 175 grams of water).



Then I multiplied the weight of the citric acid by 0.624 to get the weight of lye ( sodium hydroxide). I did combine the lye very slowly with the pitcher in a cold water bath ( sink). This is a very exothermic reaction and will boil water if you are not careful!!!

Now for the fun part. I put the salty water in a stainless pan and brought it up to a very slow simmer. Jan thinks I'm slightly off any way so she's not too surprised that I cooking water. Especially since this solution is clear.

After a few minutes it begins to look like milk as the amount of water decreases to the point that the salt cannot stay in suspension. Then it thickens. Finally I put a very thick paste on some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and slid it all in the oven on warm.

I now have a pint of sodium citrate in my soaping cabinet!

It is safer to use the baking soda!!!!
If you decide to try this with lye be very careful!!!

Steve

I'm book marking for later. This is awesome! :think:

 

[BattleGnome]

How are you storing it? Would a mason jar be ok or should I look for pp05?

 

[neonstudy]

Do you do this instead of adding citric acid to your soap? Right now, I dissolve citric acid in water, then add to my oils before adding the lye. What is your method?

 

[Dahila]

Galaxy Mp post; Sodium citrate from baking soda and citric acid
[FONT=&quot]So, I've seen posts about sodium citrate all over the place (for chelating) and I bought myself some citric acid to add it to my soaps.
I've seen alot of people talking about adding extra lye to make their sodium citrate solution in their lye water. Since I'm forgetful when it comes to soaping, I kinda wanted to skip a math step. I wanted to make sodium citrate itself (dry powder).
I decided to use baking soda because its cheaper than sodium hydroxide but is also a base. The same can be done with washing soda if you wanted to!
After doing some math:
1 gram of citric acid (CA) is neutralized with 1.3124 grams of baking soda (BS).
1. I weighed out 200 g of CA and 263 g BS.
2. I added 400 ml of water to a pot and added the CA till dissolved. Then I added the BS slowly!! Remember vinegar + baking soda (or even bath bombs) it with fizz up! Let it stop fizzing before proceeding. You need to stir to stop it from overflowing. I also tested the pH w/ pH paper. I wanted it to be at least 7-8. I didn't want it to be acidic b/c that would up my superfat when I used it in soap.
3. I boiled it until the water was evaporated (maybe an hour). During the evaporation, for the last bit, it got syrup like. Then it started to cake the bottom of the pot. I recomend using a steel pot for this b/c you will get it caked on the bottom and may need to scrape some of it off.
The theoretical yield (amount of sodium citrate I should end up with) for the amount of CA and BS I originally used was 268 g. I got 321 g because I couldn't get all the water to evaporate.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Sodium citrate is manufactured by the neutralization of citric acid with sodium hydroxide. Odorless and with a slightly salty taste, the sodium citrate from Cargill is available in the form of white translucent crystals, in the granular and fine granular presentations, for use in various applications. [/FONT]

 

[penelopejane]

Do you do this instead of adding citric acid to your soap? Right now, I dissolve citric acid in water, then add to my oils before adding the lye. What is your method?

I dissolve citric acid in the water for the NaOH wait for it to clear then add the NaOH. I reserve some water from the recipe to mix colours and other additives and add that directly to the oils.

Your way is just as good though. :mrgreen:

 

[Steve85569]

How are you storing it? Would a mason jar be ok or should I look for pp05?

Store as you would any salt. This is not acid nor caustic.

Using this method or Galaxy Mp's method you get a salt ( sodium citrate) that is ready to add to you water at your desired rate. The bonus for me is that I do not have the water heating when I add it in so I don't have to wait as long to mix the ingredients for soap. That and I got to play MAD SCIENTIST!!!


Making sodium acetate out of vinegar is very similar. For 5% acetic ( most vinegar - read the label) the multiplier is 0.0333 for the amount of lye ( sodium hydroxide) to add to the vinegar to neutralize the acid. More water ( 95%) so the heat is absorbed by the water better. This does result in a longer simmer on the stove before it can go on the parchment.

The citrate softens soap but prevents DOS and acts as a chelator.

The acetate acts as a hardener and might help prevent DOS.

Having made both in the last few days they are easy to tell apart once put into their jars for storage. I still labeled them.

If I do the sodium citrate with lye again I will add 4 times the weight of citric acid in water to the start and then report back on the heat. At 2 to 1 it was REALLY hot and needed the cold water bath.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

One benefit of using the baking soda method is that it's easier to produce food-grade sodium citrate with easily available ingredients. Baking soda and citric acid from the grocery are food-grade, but lye from the hardware store definitely is not. (I've seen too many black specks of "whatever" in hardware store lye to ever eat it.)

If you don't know why you'd want food-grade sodium citrate, Google "sodium citrate cheese sauce". If you make homemade ice cream, it will also help prevent making butter instead of a homogenous mixture.