Method for thermal treatment of tall oil pitch (top)
AssigneeSunpine AB
InventorsLars STIGSSON, Valeri NAYDENOV, Christian HULTEBERG
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Abstract
The present invention describes a method for the treatment of tall oil pitch (TOP), said method comprising heating the TOP and optionally additives including water and steam to a temperature of at least 300° C.; maintaining the temperature in the reactor at 300° C. or higher for a period of time to enable thermal treatment of the TOP to act on components thereof to produce fatty acids and/or rosin acids, and/or derivatives thereof, and/or unsaponifiables and/or derivatives having lower molecular weight compared to the high molecular weight components with molecular weights of at least 350 g/mole present in the original TOP, to yield a modified TOP material with lower viscosity.
Claims26
Method for the treatment of tall oil pitch (TOP), said method comprising:
- heating the TOP in a reactor to a temperature of at least 300° C.;
- maintaining the temperature in the reactor at 300° C. or higher under a period of time sufficient to enable cracking/cleaving of high molecular weight components in the TOP generating fatty acids and/or rosin acids, and/or derivatives thereof, and/or unsaponifiables and/or their derivatives, which have lower molecular weight compared to the high molecular weight components in the original TOP, thereby yielding a modified TOP phase having lower viscosity compared to the original TOP.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.