Hemp is a strain of cannabis sativa plant grown for industrial use. Hemp is used commercially to make rope, paper, textiles, fiber board and building insulation. Hemp oil is obtained by pressing hemp seeds. Cold pressed hemp oil is light colored with a nutty flavor. Hemp oil is rich in linolenic fatty acids and is used to make biodiesel, drying oils for paints and coatings and in nutrition and animal feed.
Work has been performed to use hemp oil as a feedstock to make water soluble surfactants for home and personal care applications. By reacting the oil with a polyol, a variety of different nonionic surfactants can be prepared such as fatty acid ethoxylates, methyl ester ethoxylates and vegetable oil ethoxylates. The surface properties on hemp oil ethoxylates have been evaluated. In general, hemp oil ethoxylates show low CMC and surface tension. They show good interfacial tension reduction and detergency in textile cleaning applications. Hemp oil ethoxylates are good foam stabilizers for liquid dish, shampoo and body wash.
