Tall oil distillation

Distillation. Separation of rosin from fatty acids is an essential step in utilizing CTO. The basic patent for tall oil distillation was granted in 1911 and the first commercial plant was constmcted in Kotka in 1913 (21), making Finland the birth place of the tall oil industry. In the United States,... 

The older tall oil distillation columns used bubble cap trays. In new columns, structured packing is preferred. Because of the low pressure drop of structured packing, steam injection is no longer necessary. The low liquid holdup of this packing minimizes the reactions of the fatty and resin acids. A specific distillation sequence for vacuum columns using structured packing of Sulzer has been described (26). Depitching is carried out at a vacuum of... 

Tall oil distillation, 36 TEMA classification, heat exchangers, 200... 

In addition to resin acids, rosin contains neutral materials and oxidized impurities. Tall oil rosin contains about 1-5% fatty acid and small amounts of sulfur compounds and phenolics. In tall oil pitch, which is the bottom fraction in the tall oil distillation process, besides residual amounts of rosin and fatty acids, a substantial amount of unsaponifiable matters has been identified and recovered as B-sitosterol (30). Gum rosin contains large amounts of neutrals that contribute to the typical odor and reduce its tendency to crystallize. The amount of neutral materials present in a rosin largely depends upon the location where the raw material originates and its processing conditions. 

Tall oil tal, oi(9)l [part trans. of Gr Talldl, part trans. Swedish tallolja, fr. tall pine + olja oil] n. A generic name for a number of products from the manufacture of wood pulp by the alkah process sulfate or kraft process. To provide some distinction between the various products, designations are often applied in accordance with the process or composition, some of which are cmde tall oil, acid refined tall oil, distilled tall oil, tall oil fatty acids, and tall oil rosin. The following designations for tall oil shall be considered obsolete crude resinous hquid, finn oil, liquid resin, liquid rosin, resin oil, sulfate pitch, sulfate resin, sulfate rosin, Swedish pine oil, Swedish resin, Swedish rosin, Swedish rosin oil, Sylvie oil, talloel, tallol, Swedish oil, fluid resin, and Swedish olein. 

Tall oil, distilled n. Class of products obtained by distilling crude tall oil in fractionating equipment under reduced pressure under such conditions that the ratio of rosin acids to fatty acids is varied over a wide range. The products, which generally contain less than 90% of fatty acids are known as distilled tall oils. The fatty acids are a mixture of oleic and linoleic acids with lesser amounts of saturated and other unsaturated fatty acids. The remainder consists of rosin and neutral materials. 

Tall Oil TOFA (Tall Tall Oil Distilled Pitch (incl. 

Knoer, R, A New Approach of Tall Oil Distillation, Pulp Chemicals Association Naval Stores Meeting, Atlanta, November 1974. 

The sulfate soap is processed to crude tall oil (CTO) by acidification with sulfuric acid at the pulp mills. CTO is then delivered by the pulp mills to tall oil distillation plants, where CTO is fractionated by vacuum distillation to yield the main products tall oil rosin (TOR), tall oil fatty acid (TOFA) and distilled tall oil (DTO) (Figure 3.2). 

Figure 3.2 PrindpeJ scheme and main products of crude tall oil distillation.

In 2005, the production of tall oil distillation products was approximately as follows TOR 400 000 tonnes, TOFA 450 000 tonnes and DTO 60 000 tonnes [9]. Gum rosin, a product similar to TOR, originating from tapping oleoresin from pine trees, is produced on a large industrial scale, especially in China. The Chinese production was in 2005 close to 700000 tonnes [9]. 

American CTOs contain smaller amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids than Nordic CTOs. This difference is also reflected in the tall oil distillates, with lower amounts of linoleic and pinolenic acids than in corresponding Nordic products. This difference is related to the warmer climate in the southeastern US, but this trend can also be noticed even within Finland and Sweden. 

Surface-Active Compounds as Forest-Industry By-Products 49 Table 3.1 Typical compositions of Nordic and American tall oil distillation products... 

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