Method for preparing fatty acid esters with alcohol recycling
AssigneeVlaamse Instelling Voor Technologisch Onderzoek (Vito)
InventorsKathy Elst, Luc Van Ginneken, Jo Sijben
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Abstract
A method produces fatty acid esters by transesterification of fats and oils with the aid of an alcohol, at a high pressure and temperature. Unreacted alcohol is separated inline from the reaction mixture and continuously recycled into the transesterification process. The separation is performed by obtaining a vapour phase and higher density phases of the reaction mixture and concentrating the alcohol in the vapour phase.
Claims16
A method of producing fatty acid esters by means of transesterification of fats and/or oils and an alcohol, the method comprising the steps of:
- supplying the fats and/or oils and the alcohol to a reactor,
- reacting the fats and/or oils with the alcohol at a temperature falling in the range between 240° C. and 450° C. and a pressure falling in the range between 0.5 MPa and 25 MPa to obtain a reaction mixture comprising unreacted alcohol,
- adjusting the pressure and the temperature of the reaction mixture to foam a vapour phase and one or more phases of higher density than the vapour phase, wherein the vapour phase and one or more phases of higher density are intimately mixed, and wherein the unreacted alcohol is concentrated in the vapour phase,
- feeding the mixture of vapour phase and the one or more phases of higher density to a separator and separating the vapour phase to obtain a first stream and the one or more phases of higher density to obtain a second stream, wherein the first stream comprises at least 90% by weight of unreacted alcohol and the second stream comprises a smaller fraction of unreacted alcohol than the first stream, and
- continuously recycling said first stream to the reactor.
The method according to claim I, wherein the separating step comprises separating the reaction mixture by flash separation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.