Oleic acid into solid acids, Conversion

According to Lant Carpenter, some 75 per cent, of solid fatty acids may be obtained from tallow by the sulphuric acid process, owing to the conversion of a considerable quantity of oleic acid into isoleic acid (vide p. 12), but in the process a considerable proportion of black pitch is obtained. C. Dreymann has recently patented (Eng. Pat. 10,466, 1904) two processes whereby the production of any large amount of hydrocarbons is obviated. In the one case, after saponification with sulphuric acid, the liberated fatty acids are washed with water and treated with an oxide, carbonate, or other acid-fixing body, e.g., sodium carbonate, prior to distillation. In this way the... 

The unsaturated nature of these acids renders their behaviour with various reagents entirely different from that of the preceding series. Thus, they readily combine with bromine or iodine to form addition compounds, and the lower members of the series are at once reduced, on treatment with sodium amalgam in alkaline solution, to the corresponding saturated acids of Series I. Unfortunately, this reaction does not apply to the higher acids such as oleic acid, but as the conversion of the latter into solid acids is a matter of some technical importance from the point of view of the candle-maker, a number of attempts have been made to effect this by other methods. 

In this note the use of hydrogen in the fat hardening industry has been described with particular reference to the conversion of the unsaturated oleic and linoleic fatty acids into stearic acid However, what has been said in regard to diis matter is equally applicable to the conversion of olein and linolein into stearin, cotton-seed and most fish oils being quite easily converted into solid fats. 

Conversion of Oleic into Elaidic Acid.— Furthermore, oleic acid, a liquid is easily converted, by means of a small amount of nitrous acid into white solid elaidic acid. This reaction is of the nature of other... 

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