Fats and Oils as Raw Materials

Most fatty acids are obtained by hydrolysis of oils from various oleochemical sources (animal, marine and plant) and the composition of fatty acids in the oil is determined by its origin and production method. An exception to this is the widely used tall oil fatty acid products, obtained as free fatty acids together with rosin acid from paper pulping. Animal sources, for example lard and tallow, are characterized by high concentrations of saturated fatty acids, while marine sources (fish oils) are characterized by long-chain and unsaturated acids. The fatty acid composition of oils from plant sources varies greatly 

Traditionally, industrial oleochemistry has concentrated predominantly on exploiting synthetic methods applied to the carboxylic acid functionality of fatty acids, and less than 10% of the modifications have involved the hydrocarbon backbone of the fatty acid [21]. However, the continued development of oleochemistry opens up for several reaction routes involving selective transformation of the alkyl chain, for example epox-idation, sulfonation, with the potential of producing new highly-branched and charged hydrophobes from abundant natural material [15]. 

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