Coconut diethanolamide (CDEA / 6501): what it is and how to specify it

What 6501 actually is

6501 is industry shorthand for coconut oil fatty acid diethanolamide, also written CDEA or cocamide DEA - an alkanolamide made by reacting a coconut-derived fatty acid with diethanolamine. It is a nonionic surfactant, and in practice it is bought for one thing above all others: what it does to foam and to viscosity. A shampoo or a liquid detergent that lathers thinly, or that goes watery on the shelf, is usually a formula short of an alkanolamide rather than short of a primary surfactant. In this range the grade is published as Coconut Oil Fatty Acid Diethanolamide (6501 / CDEA).

Where the name comes from

Three parts of the name carry three different pieces of information. "Coconut" is the fatty acid source - the lauric-rich cut of coconut oil, whose dominant C12 chain sits behind the molecule's balance of a small polar head and a short tail. "Diethanolamide" is the head: two hydroxyethyl groups joined to the fatty acid through an amide linkage, which is what makes the molecule nonionic and what gives it the hydroxyl groups that hydrogen-bond in water. And "6501" is a trade code rather than a chemical name - it identifies the diethanolamide grade inside the coconut alkanolamide family, and it is the number a formulator uses in a purchasing conversation.

The jobs 6501 does in a formulation

• Foam stabilisation and viscosity building. The alkanolamide associates with the primary surfactant in the system and structures the liquid phase, so lather holds longer and the product thickens without a separate thickener.
• Foam boosting. It lifts lather volume in systems built on anionic surfactants, which is why it belongs in shampoo, body wash, hand soap and dish liquid rather than in low-foam industrial cleaning.
• Emulsification and emulsion body. It helps hold an oil phase dispersed and adds viscosity to the emulsion while doing so.
• Antistatic and conditioning. Published by the client as a secondary function of the coconut diethanolamide grade, which is what carries it into textile and personal-care systems rather than cleaning alone.
• Detergency, penetration and emulsification of oils and soils in liquid cleaning systems.

6501 and CMEA: the two alkanolamides side by side

Note the qualification in the CAS row. The diethanolamide grade in this range is published as CAS 90170-44-3; the monoethanolamide is published as 68140-00-1 and is still awaiting the client's final confirmation. Coconut-derived alkanolamides also appear under more than one registry number depending on how the coconut fatty acid cut is defined, so the number on the certificate - not the number in a catalogue - is the one that governs registration paperwork. Ask for the lot CAS in writing.

Is 6501 the right choice for your system?

• It thickens through association with the primary surfactant, so a formula with no anionic primary will not respond the way a shampoo does.
• Electrolyte and pH both move the viscosity curve. In a system that is already salted, the alkanolamide and the salt are working on the same lever, and adding both overshoots.
• Amphoteric co-surfactants change the response, so a viscosity figure taken from one base should not be carried across to another.
• Run a small bench trial at your own working concentration before scaling. Foam volume and viscosity are cheap to measure in 500 g and expensive to discover in a batch.

What to confirm before you buy

The published specification for the diethanolamide grade in this range is deliberately short: CAS 90170-44-3, purity >=99%, JIENUO brand, nonionic alkanolamide, with the client's antistatic and conditioning note attached. Two figures a formulator normally wants are not in the public specification - active matter and amine value - and they are exactly the two that set how much material you need and how the foam behaves. Ask for them against a lot certificate rather than assuming them from a grade number.

• Active matter. This sets the dose, because the rest of the drum is not doing the job.
• Amine value. This tracks how much unreacted amine remains, which is the figure your own incoming QC and your customer's formulation both care about.
• pH and appearance. Fast checks that a delivered lot matches what you trialled.
• The lot certificate, not a grade datasheet. Grade numbers repeat across suppliers; certificates do not.

What coconut oil based alkanolamide is telling you

The phrase does two jobs at once. Alkanolamide names the chemistry: a fatty acid joined to an alkanolamine, which is where the amide in the name comes from. Coconut oil based names the feedstock, and the fatty acid comes from coconut oil. The amine half is where the family splits, and that split - diethanolamine against monoethanolamine - is what separates CDEA from CMEA.

So the two halves of the name answer two different questions. The feedstock tells you what the tail of the molecule is made of and, with it, the profile you can expect in foam and viscosity work. The amine tells you which grade you are actually holding.

The coconut alkanolamides you meet in a catalogue

Read that table with one caution attached. A CAS number is a family-level identity, not a lot-level specification. The diethanolamide grades here are published as CAS 90170-44-3 and the monoethanolamide as CAS 68140-00-1, which is to say two compounds rather than two names for one. The grade on the lot certificate, not the heading in a catalogue, is the one that governs registration paperwork.

Why the coconut feedstock carries the name

Coconut oil is lauric-rich: its fatty acid profile is dominated by C12, with C14 next. That profile is what gives the coconut alkanolamides their standing in foaming and viscosity work, and it is why the feedstock is named in the trade instead of being left implicit in the chemistry. A lauric-based amide and a stearic-based amide are the same chemistry with different tails, and they do not behave the same way in foam, solubility or melting behaviour.

This is also why the grading vocabulary is worth fixing early in a sourcing conversation. Asking for an alkanolamide without naming the amine and the fatty acid cut leaves two open variables, and the two suppliers quoting you can both be right and still not be quoting the same material.

Answering a market question with evidence

Buyers who search for a coconut alkanolamide market usually want one of two things: a size figure, or a way to compare suppliers. The published product data in this range supports the second and not the first. There is no production, capacity or market-size figure in the entries, and none should be inferred: a number invented for a page is worse than no number at all.

The useful answer to a market question is a comparison list, because that is what a sourcing decision actually turns on. The items below are the ones the published entries let you check before you ask a supplier for anything.

• Unit price basis: per kilogram, and whether the quote is on 100% active matter or as supplied.
• Active matter and amine value, the two figures that set how much material you need and how the foam behaves.
• Foam and viscosity behaviour measured in your own base rather than accepted from a generic claim.
• Colour and odour, which carry weight in personal-care and textile applications.
• Packing, storage and lead time, since alkanolamides are supplied as viscous liquids or pastes.
• Whether the CAS and grade on the quotation match the CAS and grade on the lot certificate.

Two suppliers can quote the same grade name at the same headline price and still not be comparable, because the amine value behind the price is what you are really buying. That is the figure to put beside the price before any shortlist is made.

Where the family sits in a formulation

Coconut alkanolamides are used for more than foam. The diethanolamide grades are chosen for foam stabilising, viscosity building and detergency, and the published notes for this range attach antistatic and conditioning behaviour that carries into textile and personal-care systems. They are also used for penetration and emulsification in cleaning formulations, up to and including metal cleaning and hard-surface degreasing. That breadth is why the same family turns up in a shampoo and in a hard-surface cleaner, and why the grade matters more than the family label.

The monoethanolamide side runs the same job list from a different starting point: foam boosting and thickening, with published compatibility alongside anionic surfactants, which is what makes it useful inside an SLS or SLES base.

What to confirm before you specify one

Ask for the lot certificate and read it against the grade you are buying, not against the family name. Confirm the CAS the supplier is quoting, the active matter and the amine value. If the application is a regulated one, ask for the applicable grade certificate rather than inferring it from the trade name, and keep the written answer with the specification. Three items, in this order: identity, then specification, then lot.

For the products themselves, see the Coconut Oil Fatty Acid Diethanolamide (6501 / CDEA) entry and the Ninal 6501 Detergent entry, which share one CAS and are positioned differently by the client. For the surface-active classes around them, nonionic vs anionic surfactants sets out how the uncharged amides sit against the charged classes, and for the textile role of an antistatic and conditioning surfactant, levelling, penetration and scouring in textile dyeing is the entry point. The definition of the amide's surface activity itself is covered in what an emulsifier is.

The ratio behind the name: 1:1, 1:2 and what else a 6501 can be

Coco diethanolamide is a family, and the ratio at which it was made is a variable inside that family. The compound is built by reacting the fatty acid cut of coconut oil with diethanolamine, and the two can be charged at different molar ratios. The headline identity a buyer can act on - a CAS number and an assay figure - does not fix that ratio at all. Two drums carrying the same grade name and the same CAS can therefore carry different amounts of unreacted amine, and that difference is what a certificate catches.

There is a reason suppliers do not simply run the reaction at the theoretical ratio. Charging an excess of diethanolamine pushes the amidation further and leaves the product easier to dissolve and easier to blend into a liquid base. The trade-off is that the surplus amine stays in the drum, and the buyer pays for it twice: it is not the amide that does the foam work, and it is one more number to control on the incoming certificate.

This is why the ratio is stated as a label in its own right. A grade written as 1:1 was charged close to the theoretical ratio; a grade written as 1:2 was charged with a deliberate excess of diethanolamine. The wording around those labels varies from supplier to supplier and market to market, so the safe habit is to read the ratio itself rather than the descriptive word that comes with it.

The ratio bands you meet in a catalogue

Three bands cover most of what is quoted, and each one answers a different question. The table below sets out what the ratio is doing and where each band tends to be chosen.

Read that table as a set of tendencies rather than a rulebook. The exact charge is a supplier decision, and the label is only a description of it. What matters commercially is that the ratio is the first thing to ask about when two quotes look identical and then behave differently on the bench.

How the ratio shows up on paper: free DEA and amine value

The ratio rarely appears on a lot certificate as a ratio. It appears as a read-out of it. The two common forms are a free-diethanolamine figure and an amine value, and both measure how much unreacted amine is still in the drum. A higher-ratio grade carries a higher figure on both.

• Free DEA tells you how much unreacted diethanolamine remains. It is the figure your own incoming QC will want a ceiling for, because it is the part of the drum that is not doing the foam work.
• Amine value expresses the same leftover amine as a titration figure, usually in milligrams of potassium hydroxide per gram. It is the number to compare when two suppliers quote the same grade name.
• Active matter sets the dose. It tells you how much of the drum is the amide, and whether you can run the same percentage as last time.
• A viscosity shift at an unchanged dose is the symptom to watch. If a new lot thickens differently in the same base, the amine figure on the certificate is the first place to look before the formulation is blamed.

None of these three replaces the ratio; they confirm it. The practical order is to agree the ratio you want, then hold the certificate to the figures that follow from it.

The coconut cut behind the name, and why it is not a single-cut amide

The word coconut in coconut diethanolamide is doing real work. Coconut oil is lauric-rich: its fatty acid profile is dominated by the C12 chain, with C14 the next largest fraction. An amide made from that blend carries a mix of chain lengths, and the mix is what gives the coconut grades their standing in foam and viscosity work.

A single-cut amide - one built from a purified C12 acid rather than the coconut blend, such as a lauramide - is a narrower molecule. It behaves more sharply and more predictably, and it is chosen when a narrow melting and solubility behaviour is the point. The coconut blend trades that sharpness for a foam texture and a solubility profile that suit liquid systems, and that trade is the reason the feedstock is named in the grade rather than left behind the chemistry.

So an enquiry that asks only for a diethanolamide leaves two variables open at once: which fatty acid cut, and at which ratio. Those are the two the supplier is choosing on your behalf if you do not name them.

Where coco diethanolamide sits in a package, and what to keep away from it

In a working liquid, coco diethanolamide is a secondary surfactant. It is not there to carry the detergency; it is there to structure the liquid phase next to a primary surfactant, so the product thickens and the lather holds. That role decides who it sits beside.

• Primary anionics are its ordinary partners. The anionic supplies the cleaning and the wetting; the alkanolamide structures the phase so the viscosity builds without a separate thickener.
• Ethoxylated alcohols share the same base and give the system its solubility margin. They are the other half of the package rather than a rival to the amide.
• Cationic ingredients are the pairing to keep out. A positively charged additive and a negatively charged primary in the same vessel will find each other, and the alkanolamide is not going to stand in the way.
• Strong oxidising actives at a high dose are a handling decision rather than a formulation one: they belong in a separate stage, and the amide goes in where it can do its structuring job.

The discipline is to brief the whole package rather than a single grade. An alkanolamide chosen in isolation can meet its own specification and still disappoint, because its job only exists relative to the primary it is paired with.

What to put in an enquiry for a coco diethanolamide

An enquiry that names only 6501 will attract quotes that look comparable and are not. The list below is the minimum that makes two suppliers answerable to the same specification.

• The ratio you want, or, if you have no preference, the free-amine or amine-value ceiling your incoming QC will hold the lot to.
• Active matter, since it sets the dose and the cost per unit of work done.
• The fatty acid cut, stated as a coconut-blend expectation rather than left open.
• The CAS the supplier is quoting, because a family-level number and a grade-level description are not the same statement.
• The job and the medium: the primary it will sit beside, the water hardness, and the pH window the product has to work in.
• The documents you need with the lot, so the paper trail is agreed before the first drum rather than after it.

Two quotes on the same grade name are not a comparison until the ratio and the amine figure are on the table. Put those two beside the price and the shortlist usually sorts itself.

For the wider picture, the same name-versus-behaviour question is worked through in surfactant vs emulsifier, and an equivalence settled on figures rather than a name is set out in Tween-80 equivalents and specification. For the selection side of a related duty, see choosing an emulsifier for agrochemicals.

Related entries in this range: CMEA (coconut monoethanolamide) is the monoethanolamide counterpart that runs the same job list from one hydroxyethyl group, and AEO-9 (C12-14 alcohol ethoxylate) is the ethoxylated partner that normally shares the base.

Related reading

For where this fits in the wider picture, start with nonionic versus anionic surfactants and what an emulsifier is and how the ionic types compare. For the head-group chemistry that sits underneath the foam behaviour, see how the hydrophilic head group sets the balance, and for the textile role of an antistatic and conditioning surfactant, see levelling, penetration and scouring in textile dyeing. Where the system needs foam control rather than foam support, the sorbitan ester pair runs the other way: Span-80 (CAS 1338-43-8) is published as a water-in-oil emulsifier and Tween-80 (CAS 9005-65-6) as its oil-in-water counterpart and solubiliser. Ninal 6501 Detergent is the same CAS positioned by the client for cleaning performance and for penetration and emulsification, and Coconut Monoethanolamide (CMEA) covers the monoethanolamide side of the same family.