Non-catalytic steam hydrolysis of fats

Technical Report · Fri Aug 28 00:00:00 EDT 1992

OSTI ID:6988126

Deibert, M C

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; USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG01-89CE15427
• OSTI ID: 6988126
• Report Number(s): DOE/CE/15427-T14; ON: DE92040998
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
CARBOXYLIC ACIDS
PRODUCTION
FATS
HYDROLYSIS
GLYCEROL
OILS
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
CHEMICAL REACTORS
FEASIBILITY STUDIES
PROGRESS REPORT
STEAM
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K
ALCOHOLS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DECOMPOSITION
DOCUMENT TYPES
HYDROXY COMPOUNDS
LYSIS
ORGANIC ACIDS
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
OTHER ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
SOLVOLYSIS
TEMPERATURE RANGE
320303* - Energy Conservation
Consumption
& Utilization- Industrial & Agricultural Processes- Equipment & Processes
400201 - Chemical & Physicochemical Properties