as students across loyola university chicago lather their hands in the restroom, a small sticker on the soap dispenser which reads “biosoap” reminds them that the cleanser they are using isn’t just from a bottle, rather it is a specially crafted product made by students in loyola’s school of environmental sustainability’s searle biodiesel lab. 

the lab houses a biodiesel processor, methanol recovery system, and soap production equipment, which is used to convert used cooking oil from loyola food service facilities into renewable biodiesel fuel that is used to operate a fleet of campus shuttles and buses. the lab team uses byproducts from fuel production to make environmentally friendly soap for campus restrooms and kitchens, operating a zero-waste production process while offering experiential learning opportunities for students.

duncan schanz and mikaila cadavona are student interns for the searle biosiesel lab, a program overseen by zach waickman, the lab manager. they have been working in the lab since the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year.

“the origins of our biosoap all start with the biodiesel process. when we’re making the biodiesel, we take our used cooking oil and put it through a chemical reaction. in this reaction we get a byproduct which is crude glycerin,” says schanz, a second year student studying environmental science. 

“the crude glycerin is then refined to remove the methanol, which we use later in our other biodiesel processes so it’s very sustainable,” schanz said. “after we take the methanol out it’s very viscous and very lava like, and it takes a very long time to pump.”

“then we put our glycerin into our soap processor and do a chemical reaction called saponification where we add koh and we dilute it with water and that’s basically all you need to make soap, however we do add coconut oil for some moisturizing aspect, ” said mikaila cadavona, another student intern in the lab. 

“after that we let it stir and heat, filter it a couple times, and we make sure our soap is at a 10.25 ph. once we are at that we add some essential oils to make it smell good and that gets our soap right about 9.5 ph and that’s good to go to be processed and packaged up to go to both our campuses,” cadavona said.

the lab recently received feedback from the student body, from which there were complaints about the smell and texture of the soap. “we took a ton of feedback from students and what we found is that our soap is a little rough to the skin and makes it dry, and that is because chelation causes that sensation to the skin,” cadavona said. 

in order to address these concerns, the lab is focusing on a chelating agent, which is a chemical compound that binds tightly to metal ions. 

“there was some prior research from a former student who found out that there was a metal count in our soap, and those metals are chelators, so we have to get that metal count down,” cadavona said.  “usually in the soap industry they use edta, which is a chemical chelating agent; however, edta is not on the epa (u.s. environmental protections agency) eco-friendly list, so we are not able to use that as it does not align with our sustainable values. one promising chelating agent is citric acid, so we just have to see how to add that in,” she said. 

“a lot of people who have problems with the scent, that’s just because our soap is natural, it comes from these products that we get from making biodiesel, so it’s hard to get that smell off of it being natural and being biodegradable. it’s a much higher quality of soap but at a little cost of biodiesel smell,” schanz said. 

while the exact recipe for the soap is always being revised and tweaked, the soap production process consistently aids with the long-term goal of reducing waste, conserving resources, and combatting climate change.