US 6,187,974 B1Granted

Process for producing unsaturated fatty alcohols from lauric oils

AssigneeDHW Deutsche Hydrierwerke GmbH Rodleben

InventorsFrank Wieczorek, Gerhard Konetzke, Ekkehard Seifert

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Abstract

A process is provided for producing unsaturated fatty alcohols from lauric oils, and includes (a) ester interchange of the deacidified lauric oils with methanol to obtain the overall fatty acid methyl ester mixture; (b) fractionation of the fatty acid methyl ester mixture into a C12-C16-methyl ester (ME) fraction to be used for saturated fatty alcohols, and a C18-ME fraction containing the nearly complete proportion of the unsaturated methyl esters (ME); (c) winterization of the C18-ME fraction in order to separate out the saturated C18-ME component; (d) selective hydrogenation of the unsaturated winterized C18-ME fraction to unsaturated fatty alcohols with an iodine number between 90 and 100; and (e) purifying the crude unsaturated fatty alcohols by distillation.

Claims9

Dependent claims

A process for producing unsaturated fatty alcohols from a starting raw material containing lauric oils, comprising the steps of:

(a) converting deacidified lauric oils by ester interchange with methanol into a total fatty acid methyl ester (ME) mixture;
(b) separating the fatty acid methyl ester mixture by fractionation into a C12-C16-methyl ester (ME) fraction containing saturated fatty alcohols, and into a C18-ME-fraction containing nearly the complete proportion of the unsaturated methyl esters (ME);
(c) subjecting the C18-ME fraction to a solvent-free fractionated crystallization, winterization, for separating out the saturated C18-ME fraction from the remaining winterized unsaturated C18-ME fraction;
(d) subjecting said winterized unsaturated C18-ME fraction to selective hydrogenation to produce unsaturated fatty alcohols with an iodine number between 90 and 100;
and
(e) purifying crude unsaturated fatty alcohols obtained according to process step (d) by distillation.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.