Myristic acid has good cleaning effect and market demand is expected to continue to grow.

Myristic acid, also known as myristic acid, is a long-chain fatty acid that exists in nature. Under normal conditions, it mainly appears as a white to yellow-white hard or powdery solid, and occasionally as a shiny white crystalline solid. odor. Myristic acid has good chemical properties and has broad application prospects in the fields of medicine, food additives, cosmetics and other fields.

Myristic acid is mainly derived from vegetable oils, and a small amount of myristic acid also exists in animal fats. Myristic acid content in cardamom oil is as high as 70% in nature. Nutmeg is the main raw material for cardamom oil production. Nutmeg is an important spice crop. It is native to Indonesia and is widely cultivated in tropical areas. At present, attempts have been made to introduce nutmeg in subtropical monsoon climate areas such as Taiwan, Guangdong, and Yunnan in my country. However, the growth of nutmeg requires high climatic conditions and mature conditions. The cycle is long, and my country’s nutmeg market still relies on imports. According to Chinese customs statistics, my country imported 7,151 tons of nutmeg in 2022, with an import value of 230 million yuan.

According to the “2023-2028 China Myristic Acid Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report released by the Industrial Research Center, Myristic acid has strong surface activity, is lipophilic and hydrophilic, and is an ideal surfactant raw material. At the same time, the lipophilic and hydrophilic properties of myristic acid have a strong impact on the foaming properties of the product. It can be added as a defoaming agent to perfumes, soaps, shampoos and other cleaning products to improve the product texture. Myristic acid has the properties of lubricating the skin, moisturizing, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory, and has a good cleaning effect. It is often used in skin care cosmetics such as facial cleansers and cleansing creams. However, myristic acid is too acidic, and long-term or excessive use can easily cause the alkalinity of the skin to rise, resulting in an acid-base imbalance in the body, causing breakouts, dry skin, enlarged pores and other adverse reactions. In addition, myristic acid is also an intermediate for a variety of pharmaceutical ingredients and is widely used in the pharmaceutical field.

There are currently three main production processes for myristic acid, namely oil extraction, catalysis and oxidative dehydrogenation. The oil extraction method mainly uses nutmeg oil or other animal and vegetable oils as raw materials, and extracts myristic acid from them through saponification, neutralization and other processes; the catalytic method uses triglyceride to react under the catalysis of sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid to prepare meat. Myristic acid, but it is easy to produce a large amount of corrosive waste liquid, causing pollution to the environment; the deoxygenation method mainly uses tetraalkanol to carry out oxidation reaction and dehydrogenation.

Myristic acid has attracted attention from the academic community. Fudan University, Gansu Agricultural University, Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and other research institutes have established nutmeg-related research projects and have patents on myristic acid. At present, the popular application directions of myristic acid include new composite phase change energy storage materials, anti-brain aging drugs, asthma diagnostic indicators, etc. Industry analysts said that the application value of myristic acid is being continuously developed. It is expected that with the deepening of research in the future, the myristic acid market will Demand will continue to grow.