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ARS Home » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #107887
Title: SYNTHESIS OF FATTY ALCOHOL MIXTURES FROM OLEOCHEMICALS IN SUPERCRITICAL FLUIDS

Author
item ANDERSSON, MAGNUS - STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY
item King, Jerry
item BLOMBERG, LARS - UNIVERSITY OF KARLSTAD

Submitted to: Green Chemistry
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/23/2000
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: Hydrogenation is an important chemical reaction, particularly in the production of margarine and other semi-solid, fat-based food products. A similar reaction can also be utilized to produce high valuable chemicals from fat and oil sources into industrial chemicals such as fatty alcohol mixtures which find use in the production of surfactants for use in detergents. In this research, a new and novel method has been developed for affecting hydrogenation of a soybean oil-derived chemical into fatty alcohols. The entire process is environmentally friendly, using carbon dioxide, a non-toxic hydrogenation catalyst, and in one particular case, a naturally occurring enzyme. The described process is an improvement over existing methodology and offers a new route for the production of vegetable oil related chemicals from agricultural commodities such as soybean oil.

Technical Abstract: Hydrogenation of various types of oleochemicals is a major unit operation in industry. Traditional methods utilize batch, stirred reactor operation, resulting in long reaction times and excessive use of catalyst and hydrogen. In this study, reduction of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) to fatty alcohol mixtures in two different types of supercritical media (H2/CO2 and H2/C3H8) were compared using two different hydrogenation catalysts. High and rapid conversions are achieved at the highest experimental temperature (250 deg C) and hydrogenation concentration (25 mole %). The described hydrogenation methods has been coupled with an enzymatic-catalyzed transesterification to yield a novel sequential two- step synthetic procedure, which permits high fatty alcohol yields to be achieved directly from soybean oil.