Free fatty acid separation and recovery using resin
AssigneeThe Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois
InventorsVijay Singh, Ramkrishna Singh
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Abstract
The disclosure provides various methods for separating and recovering free fatty acids crude oil containing free fatty acids using certain ion-exchange resins to reduce the amount of free fatty acids in the crude oil to 3% or less such that the resultant oil is useable in downstream chemical processes. After separation and removal of the free fatty acids form the crude oil, the ion-exchange resin is reusable in further free fatty acid separation reactions.
Claims17
A method for separating free fatty acids (FFA) from crude oil containing FFA comprising:
- a) contacting an ion-exchange resin with a first alcohol to activate the ion-exchange resin;
- b) drying the ion-exchange resin to provide an activated ion-exchange resin;
- c) mixing the activated ion-exchange resin with the crude oil to form a mixture, wherein the mixture comprises the crude oil and the ion-exchange resin, and the ratio of the activated ion-exchange resin and the FFA in the mixture is about 10:1 w/w to about 1.875:1 w/w;
- d) incubating the mixture to adsorb FFA from the crude oil onto the activated ion-exchange resin;
- e) filtering the mixture to form a treated oil and a separated ion-exchange resin comprising the adsorbed FAA and residual oil;
- f) washing the separated ion-exchange resin with a non-polar solvent to partition the residual oil from the separated ion-exchange resin to provide a washed ion-exchange resin and a first FFA fraction, wherein the first FFA fraction comprises the non-polar solvent, the residual oil, and desorbed FFA;
- g) evaporating the non-polar solvent from the first FFA fraction to provide a second FFA fraction comprising the residual oil and the desorbed FFA;
- h) combining a second alcohol with the second FFA fraction to separate the desorbed FFA from the residual oil;
- and
- i) removing the second alcohol from the residual oil in the second FFA fraction, wherein the second alcohol comprises the desorbed FFA;
- wherein a FFA content of less than 3% w/w remains in the treated oil.
A method for separating and recovering free fatty acids (FFA) from vegetable oil or waste cooking oil containing FFA comprising:
- a) activating an ion-exchange resin with a first ethanol for about 1 hour to about 4 hours at about 25° C. to about 35° C. with agitation;
- b) drying the ion-exchange resin for about 2 hours to about 12 hours at about 45° C. to about 55° C. to provide an activated ion-exchange resin;
- c) mixing the activated ion-exchange resin with vegetable oil or waste cooking oil to form a mixture, wherein the mixture comprises the vegetable oil or the waste cooking oil and the activated ion-exchange resin, and the ratio of the activated ion-exchange resin and the FFA in the mixture is about 10:1 w/w to about 1.875:1 w/w;
- d) incubating the mixture for about 4 hours to about 8 hours at about 35° C. to about 45° C. to adsorb FFA from the vegetable oil or the waste cooking oil to the activated ion-exchange resin;
- e) filtering the mixture to form a treated oil and a separated ion-exchange resin comprising the adsorbed FAA and residual oil;
- f) washing the separated ion-exchange resin with hexane to partition the residual oil from the separated ion-exchange resin to provide a washed ion-exchange resin and a first FFA fraction, wherein the first FFA fraction comprises the hexane, the residual oil, and desorbed FFA;
- g) evaporating the hexane from the first FFA fraction to provide a second FFA fraction;
- h) combining a second ethanol fraction with the second FFA fraction to separate the desorbed FFA from the residual oil remaining in the second FFA fraction;
- i) removing the second ethanol from the second FFA fraction, wherein the second ethanol comprises the FFA;
- and
- j) evaporating the second ethanol fraction to recover the desorbed FFA;
- wherein a free fatty acid content of less than 3% w/w remains in the treated oil.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.