active mono salt and di salt a sample of sodium methyl ester sulfonate containing about 81 total active material about 78 weight percent msmes and about 3 weight percent dsmes was formed into several inner portions and mixed with varying amounts of other detergent components into a standard detergent formulation the detergent formulation included alkaline agents the formulations were incubated in an oven at elevated temperature 105 u00b0 f and elevated humidity 80 relative humidity table 1 shows the resulting amount of additional di salt formation due to the interaction of the alkaline agents with the sodium methyl ester sulfonate in the inner portion a 40 smes detergent formulation containing an inner portion of sodium methyl ester sulfonate was held at room temperature and low relative humidity 20 for up to 255 days the formulation has about 4 5 di salt active thus demonstrating the importance of excluding moisture and heat from the u03b1 sulfofatty acid ester similarly a 20 smes detergent formulation containing an inner portion of sodium methyl ester sulfonate was held at elevated temperature 105 u00b0 f but low relative humidity 20 for up to 154 days this formulation had up to 8 4 di salt active this example demonstrate the benefit of excluding moisture from detergent formulations containing u03b1 sulfofatty acid ester a first sample having an inner portion of sodium methyl ester sulfonate but no outer portion was mixed into a standard detergent formulation and then exposed to elevated temperature 105 u00b0 f and humidity 80 relative humidity for 28 days a second sample having an inner portion of smes and an outer portion applied by agglomerating the inner portion with polyvinyl alcohol and water in a kitchenaid u2122 mixer was mixed with a.