Method for the production of fuel from acid fats and system for carrying out said method
AssigneeGmk-Gesellschaft Fur Motoren Und Kraftanlagen Mbh
InventorsAldo Piacentini, Rene Niesner
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention is directed to a method of producing fuel from vegetable or animal fat having a free fatty acid content by means of catalytic esterification reactions. The method includes esterification of free fatty acids at a higher temperature in a vacuum with one or more multivalent alcohols accompanied by solid neutral catalysts, which are present in a packing bed inside a reactor, whereby the fat travels from top to bottom in the reactor with the alcohol(s) running counter current and a mixture containing alcohol and water being removed from an upper part of the reactor by means of a vacuum effect. The present invention is also directed to the apparatus for implementing the methods disclosed.
Claims20
A method of producing fuel from vegetable or animal fat or oil, which has a free fatty acid (ffa) content by means of catalytic esterification reactions, comprising:
- esterification of free fatty acids contained in the fat at a temperature from about 150° C. to about 220° C. in a vacuum of less than 250 mbar with a divalent alcohol, trivalent alcohol, and combination thereof accompanied by solid neutral catalysts, which are present in a packing bed inside a reactor, whereby the fat travels from top to bottom in the reactor with the alcohol(s) running counter current and a mixture containing alcohol and water being removed from an upper part of the reactor by means of a vacuum pump and caught in a distillation bulb by a product cooler.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.