System and method for fatty acid purification and/or lipid manufacture
AssigneeSavor Foods Limited
InventorsTrevor Seidel, Evan Roberts, Nikifar Lazouski
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method can include oxidizing hydrocarbons (and optionally oxygenates with oxygenation states less than carboxylic acids such as alcohols, aldehydes, etc.), separating the oxygenated hydrocarbons into saponifiable species and nonsaponifiable species, and treating the saponifiable species (e.g., heat treating, hydrogenation, etc. such as to reduce unsaturated bonds to saturated bonds, to convert oxygenates with greater degrees of oxygenation than monocarboxylic acids into monocarboxylic acids, etc.).
Claims20
A method comprising:
- a) oxidizing hydrocarbons to form a mixture of oxygenates comprising fatty alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, monocarboxylic acids, hydroxyacids, lactones, and unreacted hydrocarbons;
- b) saponifying the mixture of oxygenates to generate saponifiable species from the monocarboxylic acids, the hydroxyacids, and the lactones and nonsaponifiable species from the unreacted hydrocarbons, the fatty alcohols, the aldehydes, and the ketones;
- c) at a first pressure greater than 50 barg and a first temperature between 20° and 300° C., evaporatively removing solvent from the saponifiable species and the nonsaponifiable species;
- d) at a second pressure between 0.5 and 2 barg and a second temperature between 20° and 300° C., evaporatively removing residual solvent remaining after c) and volatile nonsaponifiable species;
- e) thermally treating the saponifiable species to convert the hydroxyacids and the lactones into unsaturated monocarboxylic acids;
- f) hydrogenating the unsaturated monocarboxylic acids to form saturated monocarboxylates;
- and
- g) neutralizing the saponifiable species and the saturated monocarboxylates.
A method for increasing a yield of monocarboxylic acids formed via oxidation of hydrocarbons comprising:
- saponifying oxygenates formed by the oxidation of hydrocarbons to produce a saponified sample;
- heat treating the saponified sample within a reaction vessel at a temperature between 200° C. and 385° C., wherein the saponified sample comprises hydroxyacids and lactones, wherein the hydroxyacids and the lactones are converted to unsaturated carboxylates during the heat treatment;
- while the reaction vessel is between 200° C. and 385° C., introducing hydrogen gas into the reaction vessel to reduce unsaturated bonds of the unsaturated carboxylates to saturated bonds forming saturated carboxylates;
- and
- neutralizing the saturated carboxylates to form the monocarboxylic acids.
A method for removing contaminants from a mixture of oxygenates comprising:
- saponifying oxygenates formed by the oxidation of hydrocarbons to produce a saponified sample;
- heat treating the saponified sample within a reaction vessel at a temperature between 350° C. and 425° C., wherein the saponified sample comprises hydroxyacids and lactones, wherein the hydroxyacids and the lactones are converted to unsaturated carboxylates during the heat treatment;
- when a temperature of the reaction vessel is greater than about 375° C., carbon dioxide is introduced into the reaction vessel to reduce a rate of a decarboxylation reaction;
- transferring the unsaturated carboxylates to a second reaction vessel, wherein in the second reaction vessel the unsaturated carboxylates are hydrogenated to form saturated carboxylates;
- and
- neutralizing the saturated carboxylates to form the monocarboxylic acids.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.