Plasticizer range, fatty alcohols

In polymer applications derivatives of oils and fats, such as epoxides, polyols and dimerizations products based on unsaturated fatty acids, are used as plastic additives or components for composites or polymers like polyamides and polyurethanes. In the lubricant sector oleochemically-based fatty acid esters have proved to be powerful alternatives to conventional mineral oil products. For home and personal care applications a wide range of products, such as surfactants, emulsifiers, emollients and waxes, based on vegetable oil derivatives has provided extraordinary performance benefits to the end-customer. Selected products, such as the anionic surfactant fatty alcohol sulfate have been investigated thoroughly with regard to their environmental impact compared with petrochemical based products by life-cycle analysis. Other product examples include carbohydrate-based surfactants as well as oleochemical based emulsifiers, waxes and emollients. 

Fatty alcohol can be fractionated to separate the C8-C10 fraction, known as plasticizer range alcohol, and the C12-C18, known as the detergent range alcohol. The plasticizer range alcohol is a liquid with good dissolving power. It can be used in a limited way as a solvent for printing inks and lacquers. Esterification with a polycarboxylic acid, such as phthalic anhydride, yields an excellent plasticizer especially for PVC. 

Higher alcohols in the range of C6 to C18 have many industrial applications. Commercial interest includes the whole group of primary and secondary, branched and unbranched, and even- and odd-numbered alcohols. Higher tertiary alcohols are not industrially significant [109]. The C6 to Cn alcohols are called plasticizer alcohols and the C,2 to Cj8 are called surface-active or detergent alcohols because of their respective major end use [109]. Alcohols > C8 are often called fatty alcohols because that was their first original primary source. The world production capacity is currently 3 million ton/yr, of which 88% are synthetic [108,109],... 

By 2000, the alpha olefin market had grown to more than 3. billion pounds. Technology had brought down the cost of producing them and simultaneously, a broad range of applications for all the alpha olefins expanded rapidly—surfactants, synthetic lubricants, plasticizer alcohols, fatty acids, mercaptans, comonomers, biocides, paper and textile sizing, oil field chemicals, lube oil., additives, plastic processing aids, and cosmetics. 

The four main components of wood resin from most species are the resin acids, free fatty acids, combined fatty acids (esters), and unsaponifiable sterols, alcohols, terpenes, and waxes. (The resins from tropical hardwoods (e.g., Shorea spp.) can be mainly terpenoid and steroid compounds (e.g., 88, 89, 156, 157, 184, 187) and the cause of color reversion and resin spots (156, 157) (see Sect. 9.3.7.2).) As mentioned, the composition of canal and parenchyma resins differ, and in living Picea and Pinus spp. woods, levopimaric acid predominates in the canal resin over abietic, neoabietic, and palustric acids. The resin acids are the most brittle or hardest, whereas the others range between the fluid and solid state. Consequently, variations in composition will affect the plasticity or stickiness of the resultant pitch (30). Deposits at different points in a paper mill processing ther-... 

In addition to a reaction diols with dibasic acids, most polyester polymeric plasticizers, as mentioned above, are end-capped. Organic monobasic end caps are normally saturated fatty acid types. Alcohol end caps are usually in the Cg to Cio range. For several appheations, it is desirable to finish the polymeric plasticizer and reduce the residual acid or hydroxyl content essentially to zero. Acetic anhydride is typically used to eliminate hydroxyl content. 

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