Tall oil naval stores

History of Naval Stores Production Statistics of Naval Stores Processes of Naval Stores Gum Naval Stores Wood Naval Stores Tall Oil Naval Stores Chemistry of Naval Stores Rosin Turpentine Fatty Acid... 

The rapid growth of sulfate pulping in the South in the 1940s and 1950s led to the birth of the third type of naval stores in this country, the tall oil naval stores. In the tall oil naval store operation, the oleoresinous materials in the trees are recovered in the pulping process in the forms of sulfate turpentine and crude tall oil. The crude tall oil, comprising rosin and fatty acid, can... 

Oil- and hydrocarbon-producing plants are especially attractive as future energy and chemical resources. Plants already supply several products competitive with synthetic petrochemicals. These products include tall oil, naval stores, seed oils, and plant oils. For this discussion, we refer to such products collectively as oils and hydrocarbons. 

Wood is the raw material of the naval stores iadustry (77). Naval stores, so named because of their importance to the wooden ships of past centuries, consist of rosin (diterpene resin acids), turpentine (monoterpene hydrocarbons), and associated chemicals derived from pine (see Terpenoids). These were obtained by wounding the tree to yield pine gum, but the high labor costs have substantially reduced this production in the United States. Another source of rosin and turpentine is through extraction of old pine stumps, but this is a nonrenewable resource and this iadustry is in decline. The most important source of naval stores is spent sulfate pulpiag Hquors from kraft pulpiag of pine. In 1995, U.S. production of rosin from all sources was estimated at under 300,000 metric tons and of turpentine at 70,000 metric tons. Distillation of tall oil provides, in addition to rosin, nearly 128,000 metric tons of tall oil fatty acids annually (78). 

A rather impressive Hst of materials and products are made from renewable resources. For example, per capita consumption of wood is twice that of all metals combined. The ceUulosic fibers, rayon and cellulose acetate, are among the oldest and stiU relatively popular textile fibers and plastics. Soy and other oilseeds, including the cereals, are refined into important commodities such as starch, protein, oil, and their derivatives. The naval stores, turpentine, pine oil, and resin, are stiU important although their sources are changing from the traditional gum and pine stumps to tall oil recovered from pulping. 

The oleoresinous exudate or "pitch of many conifers, but mainly pines, is the raw material for the major products of the naval stores industry. The oleoresin is produced in the epithelial cells which surround the resin canals. When the tree is wounded the resin canals are cut. The pressure of the epithelial cells forces die oleoresin to the surface of die wound where it is collected. The oleoresin is separated into two fractions by steam distillation. The volatile fraction is called gum turpentine and contains chiefly a mixture of monoterpenes but a smaller amount of sesquiterpenes is present also. The nonvolatile gum rosin 5 consists mainly of llie dilerpenuid resin acids and smaller amounts of esters, alcohols and steroids. Wood turpentine, wood rosin and a fraction of intermediate volatility, pine oil are obtained together by gasoline extrachon of the chipped wood of old pine stumps. Pine oil is largely a mixture of the monoterpenoids terpineol. borneol and fenchyl alcohol. Sulfate turpentine and its nonvolatile counterpart, tall oil, 5 are isolated as by-products of the kraft pulping process. Tall oil consists of nearly equal amounts of saponified fatty acid esters and resin acids. 

Yields of 50% and reduced energy consumption have been achieved by a history of innovation. Such innovation has included the Tomlinson black liquor recovery boiler, the Kamyr continuous digester and associated diffusion washer, multiple-effect evaporators, and low-odor concentrators. Economic advantages also have been gained by the development of systems for recovering extractives such as tall oil, fatty acids, and resin from the pulping liquor for sale as naval stores. Future innovations may focus on the lime kiln and other related systems. 

Turpentine and Rosin The major naval stores products are turpentine, primarily composed of volatile terpenes, and rosin, mainly a mixture of resin acids. Principally the same products, but in different proportions, can be recovered by tapping resin-rich trees or by steam distillation or solvent extraction of wood residues and especially stumps. Today, however, the most important source for turpentine and rosin is the tall oil recovered after pulping of pine wood (see Section 10.3.1). 

For historical reasons, pine resin was known as Naval Stores , because of its use in the waterproofing of wooden ships. Depending on the way pine resin is isolated from wood, three products are distinguished, namely (i) gum naval stores, obtained by tapping living trees (ii) sulphate naval stores, also known as tall oil rosin, recovered during the kraft pulping of pine wood and (iii) wood naval stores, also known as wood rosin, obtained from the solvent extraction of harvested wood. 

Stump J.H., Quality control (tall oil, rosin, and fatty acids), in Naval Stores. Production, Chemistry, Utilization (Eds. Zinkel D.R and Russel J.), Pulp Chemical Association, New York, 1989, pp. 846-868. 

Tall oil fatty acids n. Class of products generally containing 90% or more fatty acid obtained by ffactionization of crude tall oil 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. Paint pigment, drying oils, polymers, resins, naval stores, cellulo-sics esters, and ink vehicles, vol 3. American Society for Testing and Material, 2001. 

Tall oil heads (light ends) n. Low-boihng fractions obtained by the fractional distillation of crude tall oil under reduced pressure. The composition of these products varies over a wide range but contains palmitic, oleic, linoleic, and stearic acids together with lesser amounts of other saturated and unsaturated fatty acids. The neutral materials content is normally high. Paint pigment, drying oils, polymers, resins, naval stores, cellulosics esters, and... 

Because of the emphasis in this chapter on a review of naval stores utilization, an extensive attribution to primary publications is not appropriate. For in-depth coverage of the facets of utilization, the reader is referred to a new book on the subject (20) and to the somewhat dated 1961 tome of Sandermann (14). Other important publications provide further information on the early history of naval stores (6), the utilization (11) and recovery of tall oil (3), the recovery of sulfate turpentine (4), comparative values of naval stores commodities and chemicals (19), and naval stores statistics (12). 

Whereas oleoresin-derived products of turpentine and rosin have been naval stores materials from antiquity, tall oil fatty acids are a 20th-century newcomer. Their inclusion in the naval stores arena is a result of the co-occurrence with rosin in crude tall oil and recovery by distillation as a product along with tall oil rosin. Successful commercial fractional distillation of crude tall oil was first achieved in 1949, although distilled tall oil products had been available for several decades. 

The previous sections of this chapter have considered the utilization of turpentine, rosin, and tall oil fatty acids, the primary commodity products of the naval stores industry. In the course of processing the raw materials (crude tall oil and crude sulfate turpentine, and stumpwood extractives), by-products are obtained in addition to turpentine, rosin, and tall oil fatty acids, the primary commodity products. 

The gum naval stores industry showed a similar pattern. During 1908, the peak year of production in the United States, more than 120000 tons of spirits of turpentine and 600000 tons of rosin were produced. Due to competition from wood naval stores after World War I and sulfate turpentine and tall oil after World War II, gum naval stores production declined to less than 4000 tons in 1985. The United States government, recognizing the inevitable demise of this product, completed the liquidation of its stocks in 1972, terminated the Naval Stores Conservation Program, and closed the Agricultural Research Service s Olustee (Florida) Research Laboratory in 1973 (44). 

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

Pine trees provide the raw material for producing gum rosin, wood rosin, tall oil rosin, and pine tars, all used in rubber compounding. As a group, these chemicals are commonly referred to as naval stores because historically they were needed in the construction and maintenance of wooden ships. 

Tall oil, a byproduct of the paper industry, has now surpassed naval stores as a rosin... 

There are three routes by which naval stores are produced. The oldest method is the tapping of living trees to cause a flow of oleoresin. The second method is removal of naval stores by solvent extraction. The latter process now has replaced steam distillation as a means of recovering turpentine. In the United States, the latest and now the most important route is kraft (sulphate) pulping of pine, during which turpentine and tall oil are recovered as by-products of kraft pulp manufacture. A fourth process, no longer used in the United States, is recovery of turpentine and pine oils by the destructive distillation of pine wood. ... 

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