Production of Fatty Alcohols From Fatty Acids: Manufacturing

350
Production of Fatty Alcohols from Fatty Acids

THEODOR VOESTE and HENNING BUCHOLD, Lurgi Kohle und Mineraldltechnik
GmbH, Forschungslaboratium, Gwinnerstrasse 27/33, Postfach 11 12 31, D-6000
Frankfurt am Main 11, West Germany
ABSTRACT
Detergent-range alcohols from natural feedstock can be produced
by high pressure hydrogenation of either methyl esters or fatty
acids. The increasing quantities of fats and oils on the world market
secure a reliable and economically priced material. Although fatty
acid is an abundant worldwide commodity, most alcohol producers
hydrogenate methyl esters, because direct hydrogenation of fatty
acids is difficult as the catalyst is sensitive to acid attack. The process described here makes it possible to hydrogenate fatty acids
directly to alcohols of high quality without prior esterification.
The reaction takes place in the liquid phase over a fine-grained
copper chromite slurry in a single reactor vessel. A special reactor
design with an optimum arrangement of the feeding nozzles causing
an appropriate circulation of the reacting components inside the
reactor facilitates the rapid "in situ" esterificatlon reaction. This
minimizes the free fatty acid concentration in the reactor to nearly
zero. This results in a low consumption of catalyst. The most important advantages of the process are: direct feed of fatty acids of
various origins, use of reasonably priced raw materials such as
soapstock fatty acids and lower grade tallow acids, no process steps
with methanol, and excellent economics. The process is industrially
proven.
INTRODUCTION
The oil shocks drastically changed the prospects for natural
oils and fats as raw materials for chemicals and intermediates.
Price indices of crude oil and naphtha, tallow and
coconut oil between 1970 and 1981 in Deutschmarks (1)
demonstrate the dramatic change in relationships. Starting
from an index of 100, crude oil and naphtha increased
nearly 10 times, whereas natural oil and fat remained fairly
constant.
Ethylene, which became cheaper and cheaper during the
1960s and reached its m i n i m u m in 1970-73, rose in price
and in 1981 exceeded even the price of, e.g., coconut oil.
The maximum difference in favor of natural oil was reached
in 1981/82. Since then, the development has to a certain
extent been reversed. Figure 1 shows the development of
the actual prices in r
(2).
The world production of natural oils and fats increased
5O
~0
10
COCONUT OIL
-I
3020-
'k
/,,l
,%
_-"'"~" . . . . .....~/ TALLOWrALL~.___-----~THYLENE

T H Y L E N E
1
19'69 ' 19'71 ' 19'73 ' 19'78
1977
1979
YEAR
1981
"-~
FIG. 1. Annual average prices for ethylene, tallow and coconut oil
(2).
JAOCS, vol. 61, no. 2 (February 1984)
from 1974/75 to 1979/80 by ca. 25%, but ca. 90% of the

increase was in vegetable oils and 10% in animal fats (3).
Total fat production in 1979/80 was ca. 60 millions tons.
Fluctuations in availability and price have stopped the
growth of detergent fatty alcohols made from petroleumbased raw materials. Recently installed new production
facilities started again from natural feedstock.
TECHNOLOGY OF FATTY ALCOHOL
MANUFACTURING
For more than 50 years, natural fatty alcohols have been

produced on an industrial scale by high pressure hydrogenation with catalytically activated hydrogen (4).
Meanwhile, three routes are technically proven, all of
which operate at temperatures of 250-300 C and pressures
of 200-300 bars: (a) hydrogenation over a fixed bed
catalyst in the gas phase, (b) hydrogenation over a fixed
bed catalyst in the trickle phase, and (c) hydrogenation in
the liquid phase with suspended catalyst. All these processes yield fatty alcohols of excellent quality. Typical
characteristics are the hydrogen recirculation ratio and the
liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) which are shown in
Table I (5).
HydrogenationCatalysts
Reduction of the carboxyl group by hydrogen is always accompanied by the generation of hydrocarbons of the same
chain length, because this overhydrogenation is thermodynamically favored.
Fatty alcohols can only be produced with a highly selective catalyst, ttitherto, only copper-containing catalysts
of different composition have been industrially successful
for this purpose, llowever, these catalysts are very sensitive
to typical catalyst poisons like S, C1 and P. Similar coppercontaining catalysts have prevailed in other industrial processes, e.g., methanol Synthesis and low-temperature shift
conversion, but they could not succeed until it became possible to desulfurize the raw material down to fractions of
one ppm. In the low pressure methanol synthesis, for
instance, the synthesis gas has to be desulfurized to 0.1
ppm to reach a catalyst consumption of less than 0.1 kg/
ton MeOH and a minimum lifetime of the catalyst charge of
2 years.
These low sulfur contents are, however, not attainable in
the hydrogenation of fatty acid esters or fatty acids. The
sulfur contents of natural feedstocks are much higher and
varying. In addition, they contain changing amounts of C1
and P stemming from pesticides and from previous processing steps.
There is no commonly acknowledged opinion about the
toxicity of chlorine to copper catalysts; the very strong
toxic effect is, however, undisputed. Most probably, chlorine
leads not so much to clogging of the active centers but
rather promotes the very undesirable recrystallization of
the metallic copper.
Feedstock which contains varying amounts of catalyst
poisons can be hydrogenated to advantage in the liquid
phase with suspended catalyst, because it is possible to
maintain the required catalytic activity by feeding an adequate amount of fresh catalyst to the reactor and purging
the equivalent amount of spent catalyst. Production c a n
remain fully onstream without interruption while the
351
P R O D U C T I O N OF F A T T Y ALCOHOLS FROM F A T T Y ACIDS
TABLE I
Typical Process Characteristics of the Methyl Ester Hydrogenation
Gas phase
H 2/Ester ratio (mol/mol)
LHSV (v/v. hr)
600
1
Trickle phase Slurry phase

100
0,4
50
1
whole catalyst charge is being replaced. The price to be paid

for this flexibility and independence is, however, that a
catalyst recovery section of the plant is required.
The specific catalyst consumption depends mostly on
the S and C1 content of the feedstock. Technical experience
shows, for instance, that 1 ppm sulfur above a certain level
requires 1 kg additional catalyst per ton of fatty alcohol.
Having adsorbed the sulfur, the catalyst is loaded with 1,000
ppm S and becomes nearly inactive. We cannot yet offer
similar proven figures for chlorine.
Other damaging effects of the catalyst by thermal recrystallization, coking or reaction water are of minor importance. Blocking of the active surface by highly polar components like glycerol and monoglycerides should be avoided
as it causes a higher catalyst consumption.
The copper-containing catalyst is, however, sensitive to
acids and not without fail qualified for the hydrogenation
of fatty acids. Therefore, effective measures have to be
taken to eliminate the damage to the catalyst by acids.
Traditionally this is performed with Outstanding success by
esterification of the fatty acid usually with methanol. This,
however, has not only advantages but also involves the handicap of a certain methanol decomposition and of an additional methanol separation step being required.
Principleof the LurgiFatty Acid HydrogenationProcess(6)

Lurgi has developed a process which makes it possible to
hydrogenate fatty acids directly, without previous esterification to fatty alcohols. Double bonds which may exist in
the fatty acid chain are hydrogenated simultaneously.
The hydrogenation of fatty acids to alcohols takes place
in the liquid phase at ca. 300 bar and 280 C. The overall
reaction occurs in two stages over a fine-grained, slurried
copper chromite catalyst, offered commercially by several
companies. The first stage in esterification of the fatty acid
REACTOR
with fatty alcohol to yield the ester plus water. The second
stage in hydrogenation of the ester to two moles of alcohol.
Both reactions occur simultaneously in a single reactor
vessel of special design (7).
The reactor is a loop vessel with maximum internal recirculation facilitated by a very effective bubble separating
system in the top of the reactor and an optimum arrangement of hydrogen jets and feeding nozzles for fatty acid
and catalyst slurry in the bottom. The ratio of recirculated
fatty alcohol to the fatty acid feed is more than 250, and
effective dilution within a small volume provides optimum
conditions for a rapid and complete esterification at reaction conditions.
The copper chromite catalyzes the above esterification
reaction more rapidly than the hydrogenation. This results
in a low catalyst consumption due to acid attack.
The second stage of the reaction proceeds slowly and
requires a longer liquid residence time in the reaction vessel
to obtain a good alcohol yield. Hydrogen is dissolved in the
liquid phase under high pressure and diffuses to the catalyst
surface where the hydrogenation reaction occurs.
In addition to these reactions, the unsaturated carbon
chains are saturated with hydrogen. The saturation and
hydrogenation reactions are both exothermic. The heat of
hydrogenation is approximately constant for different acid
feedstocks but the heat of saturation varies greatly, depending on the degree of unsaturation in the feedstock.
Descriptionof the ProcessPlant

The process (Fig. 2) consists of a high-pressure section in
which hydrogenation takes place, and a low-pressure section in which the alcohol is separated from the catalyst.
The fatty acid reacts with hydrogen in the presence of
slurried catalyst. The mixture of hydrogen, fatty alcohol
and catalyst leaves the reactor at ca. 300 bar and ca. 280 C.
The product mixture exchanges its heat with the circulating
hydrogen.
Liquid alcohols and catalyst, hydrogen, low boiling fatty
alcohols and reaction water are separated in a two-stage
cooling/expansion system. The released hydrogen is returned to the make-up hydrogen.
The fatty alcohol/catalyst mixture passes from the feed
tank to a centrifugal separator where the mixture is separated into a fatty alcohol/catalyst slurry phase and a
HEAT EXCHANGER
COLD
--
'
'
SEPARATOR
SEPARATOR
FLASHDRUM
~ ~
CENTRIFUGAL
PEAK HEATER
()
T
~REs,
cA,ALYS,
"--I
A
|---I
CATALYST
FATTY
ACID
HYDROGEN
REACTION WATER
FILTERED
CRUDE ALCOHOL
FIG. 2. Simplified process flow diagram for fatty alcohol synthesis via hydrogenation of fatty acids.
352
T. VOESTE AND H. BUCHOLD
DISTILLEDCOCONUT FATTYACIDS
MUL WT 21(+
FRESH
CATALYST
HYDROGEN
~ ~~
+
~!~176176
~
I-
= HYDROpLG~#~T
FATTY A C I D
I
IO N
SPENT
"CATALYST
FATTY
~.ffLiQ~
iN
FATTY ALCOHOLI
DISTILLATION
PLANT
metrtic
,,~
D,
2nd RESIDUE
~ils )
HANDUNG
LOSSES
-~ RESIDUE
DISTILLEDFATTY ALCDHOL
MUL WT 20D
FIG. 3. Typical material balance for 1,000 tons fatty alcohol product feedstock, 100% coconut fatty acid.
VACUUM
LIGHT ENOS
~~ ~ ~
RECTF
IC
I ATO
IN
~ ~
COLUMN
1
VACUUM ~
DRIER
~VACUUM
LG
I HETNOS
- - ~
CRUDE FATTY
ALCOHOL
FRACTION
FRACTION
FIG. 4. Typical process flow diagram for fractionation of fatty alcohols.

clear phase. A polishing filter removes the last traces of
solids and the clean crude fatty alcohol is pumped to the
distillation unit or product storage.
A partial stream of the spent catalyst is bled continuously
from the process and an equivalent quantity of fresh catalyst is added to the fatty alcohol/catalyst slurry mixture
which then is pumped back to the reactor.
Materialand EnergyConsumption
Figure 3 shows an example of a specific overall material
balance for 1,000 ton of distilled fatty alcohols produced,
starting from distilled coconut fatty acids. Utilities consumed per ton of crude fatty alcohol produced are approximately as shown in Table II.
The crude fatty alcohol has an acid number below 0.1
mg KOH/g; saponification value of 2-5 mg KOH/g and less
than 1 wt % of hydrocarbons.
Distillationand Fractionationof Fatty Alcohols

A typical fractionation unit for coconut fatty alcohols is
shown in Figure 4.
TABLE II
Utilities Per Ton of Crude Fatty Alcohol Produced
Catalyst
Electric power
Steam (15 bar)
Energy for peak heating
Cooling water (A T 10 C)
5 kg
130 kWhr
170 kg
1.15 X 106 kj
20 m 3
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Chem. Ind. 35:3 (1982).

Ibid. 35:251 (1983).
Klimmek, H., Ibid. 35:136 (1981).
Felletschin, G., in Fettalkohole, Henkel KGaA, Dtisseldorf,
1981.
Schtltt, H., in Ullmann, Verlag Chemie, Weinheim, 4th edn., Vol.
11, 1976, p. 427.
Buchold, H., Chem. Eng. 21:42 (1983).
Eisenlohr et al., U.S. Patent 3,180,898.
Voeste, T., et al., U.S. Patent 4,259,536.

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350

Production of Fatty Alcohols from Fatty Acids

_-"'"~" . . . . .....~/ TALLOWrALL~.___-----~THYLENE

19'69 ' 19'71 ' 19'73 ' 19'78

JAOCS, vol. 61, no. 2 (February 1984)

from 1974/75 to 1979/80 by ca. 25%, but ca. 90% of the

For more than 50 years, natural fatty alcohols have been

Trickle phase Slurry phase

whole catalyst charge is being replaced. The price to be paid

Principleof the LurgiFatty Acid HydrogenationProcess(6)

Descriptionof the ProcessPlant

JAOCS, vol. 61, no. 2 (February 1984)

FIG. 4. Typical process flow diagram for fractionation of fatty alcohols.

Distillationand Fractionationof Fatty Alcohols

JAOCS, vol. 61, no. 2 (February 1984)

Chem. Ind. 35:3 (1982).

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