Single Step Lactide Production Process with Hydrolysis of Oligomers and Catalyst by Recovered Water

Abstract

The present invention relates to a process for synthesizing lactide comprising the steps of: providing one or more components to at least one reactor, the one or more components comprising lactic acid; converting at least part of the lactic acid into lactide and water and into lactic acid oligomers; recovering at least part of the lactide; recovering at least part of the water and at least part of the lactic acid oligomers; adding a feed, optionally comprising lactic acid oligomers, and optionally comprising water, to the recovered water and the recovered lactic acid oligomers, and mixing the feed with the recovered water and the recovered lactic acid oligomers to form a mixture; converting at least part of the lactic acid oligomers in the mixture into lactic acid and into lactic acid dimer; and removing at least part of the water from the mixture; whereby at least part of the remainder of the mixture is provided as one of the one or more components that are provided to the at least one reactor; and, wherein the step of converting at least part of the lactic acid into lactide and water is performed in one step.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.