Non-catalytic steam hydrolysis of fats. Final report
Hydrolysis of fats and oils produces fatty acid and glycerol. The catalyzed, liquid phase Colgate-Emry process, state-of-the-art, produces impure products that require extensive energy investment for their purification to commercial grade. Non-catalytic steam hydrolysis may produce products more easily purified. A bench-scale hydrolyzer was designed and constructed to contact descending liquid fat or oil with rising superheated steam. Each of the five stages in the reactor was designed similar to a distillation column stage to promote intimate liquid-gas contact. Degree of hydrolysis achieved in continuous tests using tallow feed were 15% at 280C and 35% at 300C at a tallow-to-steam mass feed ratio of 4.2. At a feed ratio of 9.2, the degree of hydrolysis was 21% at 300C. Decomposition was strongly evident at 325C but not at lower temperatures. Soybean oil rapidly polymerized under reaction conditions. Batch tests at 320C produced degrees of hydrolyses of between 44% and 63% using tallow and palm oil feeds. Over 95% fatty acids were present in a clean, readily separated organic portion of the overhead product from most tests. The test reactor had serious hydraulic resistance to liquid down-flow which limited operation to very long liquid residence times. These times are in excess of those that tallow and palm oil are stable at the reaction temperature. Little glycerol and extensive light organics were produced indicating that unexplained competing reactions to hydrolysis occurred in the experimental system. Further tests using an improved reactor will be required.
- Research Organization:
- Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG01-89CE15427
- OSTI ID:
- 10183951
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/CE/15427--T14; ON: DE92040998
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
320303
37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
400201
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
CHEMICAL AND PHYSICOCHEMICAL PROPERTIES
CHEMICAL REACTORS
EQUIPMENT AND PROCESSES
FATS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
GLYCEROL
HYDROLYSIS
OILS
PRODUCTION
PROGRESS REPORT
STEAM
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K