Process for obtaining fatty acid alkyl esters, rosin acids and sterols from crude tall oil

US9079845B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Cognis IP Management GmbH · DE

Inventors

• Setsuo Sato · Gravatá, BR
• Henrique Sousa Sales · Campinas, BR
• Hercules Peloggia · São Paulo, BR
• Peter Kempers · Rheydt, DE
• Sabine Both · Goldkronach, DE
• Ulrich Schoerken · Goldkronach, DE
• Thomas Wolf · Haan, DE

Key dates

• Filing date: Feb 20, 2004
• Grant date: Jul 14, 2015
• Expiry date: Apr 8, 2029

Classification

• Technology area (CPC Y): Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
• CPC primary: Y02W30/74
• WIPO field: Organic fine chemistry
• WIPO sector: Chemistry

Abstract

The disclosed invention refers to a process for obtaining fatty acid alkyl esters, rosin acids and sterols from crude tall oil (CTO), which is characterized by the following steps: (a) reacting the free fatty acids present in the CTO with lower alcohols; (b) esterifying the sterols in the CTO with boric acid or transesterifying the sterols with a catalyst; (c) separating the fatty acid lower alkyl esters and rosin acids from the remaining sterol borate esters or sterol esters of fatty acids to produce a stream of sterol esters; (d) separating the fatty acid alkyl esters from the rosin acids to produce a first stream of fatty acid alky esters and a second stream of rosin acids; and (e) converting the sterol esters into the free sterols to produce a third stream of free sterols.