Catalysis Of Fats And Oils To Alkyl Esters Using Hydrolysis As Pretreatment

摘要

A process that employs hydrolysis of fats and oils as a pretreatment step to prevent or drastically reduce the formation of glycerin decomposition products that occur in systems that use fixed bed or heterogeneous catalysts for simultaneous trans-esterification and esterification of fats and oils to alkyl esters of fatty acids for use as Biofuels, soaps, detergents, solvents or other applications of fatty acid alkyl esters. The pretreatment step is particularly effective for processes using fixed bed catalytic reactors operating at elevated temperatures and pressures sufficient to cause formation of decomposition products of glycerin which is known to be a problem associated with these processes. The pretreatment hydrolysis step allows the formation, separation and recovery of better quality glycerin by-product and minimizing the formation of glycerin decomposition products in the reactors.