TH40845A - Methods for separating tocopherol from mixtures containing tocopherol. - Google Patents

Abstract

DC60 (21/04/42) This invention describes a method for separating tocoll from tocoll-containing additives by heating the tocoll-containing additive, which consists of tocoll, fatty acids, and esterified compounds, to esterify the fatty acids in order to produce a secondary tocoll additive consisting of tocoll, esterified fatty acids, and unesterified fatty acids. Distillation of the tocoll-containing additive with esterified fatty acids is performed to remove the esterified fatty acids from the tocoll additive, in order to produce a tocoll additive consisting of tocoll with the removed esterified fatty acids. Distillation of the tocoll additive for sufficient time and temperature is performed to remove tocoll from the tocoll additive, in order to produce a tocoll additive consisting of both the removed tocoll and non-tocoll components. The extraction of tocoll from tocoll-containing additives involves using an extraction solvent consisting of a polar organic solvent that is water-soluble to create a two-phase system: a first phase predominantly containing the extraction solvent and a second phase. The selectivity of the extraction solvent for tocoll relative to more than one non-tocoll component is determined, and the first phase is removed from the second phase, provided the extraction solvent is not a neutal alcohol. This invention relates to a method for separating tocoll from tocoll-containing additives by heating the tocoll-containing additive, which consists of tocoll, fatty acids, and esterified compounds, to esterify the fatty acids to produce a secondary tocoll additive consisting of tocoll, esterified fatty acids, and unesterified fatty acids. The tocoll-containing additive is then distilled with esterified fatty acids to remove the esterified fatty acids from the tocoll additive, resulting in a tocoll additive composed primarily of tocoll with the removed esterified fatty acids. Distillation of the tocoel mixture for sufficient time and temperature to remove tocoel from the tocoel mixture is crucial to obtaining a tocoel mixture consisting of both the tocoel component and the removed non-tocoel components. Tocoel is then extracted from the tocoel mixture using an extraction solvent consisting of a polar organic solvent that is water-soluble, creating a two-phase system. This system comprises a first phase predominantly containing the extraction solvent and a second phase where the selectivity of the extraction solvent for tocoel versus non-tocoel components is greater than one possible, and the first phase is removed from the second phase, provided that the extraction solvent is not a neutral alcohol.

Claims (1)

A method for separating tocoll from a first-order tocoll mixture consisting of tocoll, first-order fatty acid, and esterified compounds, which includes (a) heating the first-order tocoll mixture, consisting of tocoll, first-order fatty acid, and esterified compounds, for sufficient time and temperature to esterify the first-order fatty acid with the esterified compound to produce a second-order tocoll mixture, consisting of tocoll, esterified first-order fatty acid, and unesterified first-order fatty acid; (b) distilling the second-order tocoll mixture for sufficient time and temperature to remove the unesterified first-order fatty acid from the second-order tocoll mixture to produce a third-order tocoll mixture, consisting of tocoll, fatty acid esterified with the most important unesterified first-order fatty acid removed; (c) distilling the third-order tocoll mixture for sufficient time and temperature to remove most important tocoll from the third-order tocoll mixture to produce a fourth-order tocoll mixture, consisting of the most important tocoll removed. and non-tocol components; and (d) the extraction of tocol from the fourth tocol addition mixture with an extraction solvent, which consists of a polar organic solvent that is water-soluble to produce a two-phase system consisting of a first phase predominantly of the extraction solvent and a second phase, where the selection of the extraction solvent for tocol relative to the non-tocol components of the fourth tocol addition mixture is greater than one, and the removal of the first phase from the second phase, provided that the extraction solvent is not a neutal alcohol, where step (b) can be performed before step (c) or step (c) can be performed before step (b), where steps (b) and (c) are performed after step (a) and before step (d). (60 claims, Figure 1)