Synthesis of fatty alcohol mixtures from oleochemicals in supercritical fluids

Hydrogenation of various types of oleochemicals is a major unit operation i n industry. Traditional methods utilize batch, stirred reactor operation re sulting in long reaction times and excessive use of catalyst and hydrogen. In this study, reduction of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME) to fatty alcoho l mixtures in two different types of supercritical media (H-2/CO2 and H-2/C 3H8) were compared using two different hydrogenation catalysts. High and ra pid conversions are achieved at the highest experimental temperature (250 d egrees C) and at a hydrogenation mole fraction of 0.25. The described hydro genation methods has been coupled with an enzymatic-catalyzed transesterifi cation to yield a novel sequential two step synthetic procedure, which perm its high fatty alcohol yields to be achieved directly from soybean oil.