Hydrogen utilization for oleochemical products

Abstract

From processed fats and oils to various detergents which are essential to our daily life, hydrogen is widely utilized to produce oleochemical products. A typical example of hydrogenation in the oleochemical industries is the hardening of animal fats or vegetable oils. They are hydrogenated for improvement of thier quality including oxidation stability and control of the melting point. On the other hand, a large amount of hydrogen is consumed for fatty alcohol production. Here high pressure condition of more than 20MPa is used. The manufacturing process has been advanced with the technology to handle safely high pressure hydrogenation and development of hydrogenation catalyst with high performance. This report introduces a summary of hydrogen utilization in the oleochemical industries.