Process for production of high purity tocopherols

Abstract

This invention provides a method of separating tocopherols by using a weakly basic polyvinyl pyridine resin. The resin has the capacity to selectively bind tocopherols, allowing other impurities typically found in a tocopherol production plant stream to separate from the tocopherols. After loading a tocopherol-containing mixture onto a separatory column packed with the resin, the loaded column is eluted with a solvent followed by an alcohol. The eluate is collected in fractions, and the tocopherol-containing fractions are combined and concentrated to yield a purified tocopherol composition. It has been found that the present invention produces highly purified tocopherol compositions (90+%), and is particularly useful for preparing highly purified tocopherol compositions, specifically enriched in α-tocopherol.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.