Process for making triglyceride plasticizer from crude glycerol

A process for producing a plasticizer comprising:

• (i) recovering an aldehyde/alcohol mixture including at least one linear C4 to C13 aldehyde, one branched C4 to C13 aldehyde, or a combination thereof and at least one linear C4 to C13 alcohol, one branched C4 to C13 alcohol, or a combination thereof from a hydroformylation process;
• (ii) oxidizing the aldehyde/alcohol mixture to form a linear, branched or combination thereof C4 to C13 acid;
• (iii) esterifying the linear, branched or combination thereof C4 to C13 acid with a crude glycerol to yield a linear alkyl triglyceride, a branched alkyl triglyceride, or a combination thereof;
• (iv) removing reacted acid by distillation followed by filtering the esterification product to remove salts and/or ash the followed washing the esterification product with water and/or aqueous carbonate solution to remove salt residuals;
• and
• (v) purifying the linear, branched or combination thereof alkyl triglyceride to form a plasticizer, wherein the total carbon number of the triester groups ranges from 20 to 25 for greater than or equal to 45 wt % of the plasticizer.