Process for making unsaturated coconut and/or palm nut fatty alcohols

Abstract

Unsaturated coconut and/or palm nut fatty alcohols having an iodine number in the range from 65 to 85, which essentially comprise unsaturated fatty alcohols and mixtures of saturated fatty alcohols of the formula (I): R1OH   (I) in which R1 is a saturated or unsaturated, linear or branched alkyl radical having 12 to 20 carbon atoms, obtainable by fractionating coconut and/or palm nut fatty acid methyl esters to obtain a fraction containing predominantly C16-C18 portions, fractionating the C16-C18 fatty acid methyl ester fraction into a predominantly saturated distillate and a predominantly unsaturated bottom product, and hydrogenating the bottom product with retention of the double bonds to give the corresponding alcohols; are disclosed.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.