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Fatty alcohols from methyl ester hydrogenolysis

HydrogenolysisOleochemicalsFatty alcohols
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High-pressure hydrogenolysis of a fatty acid methyl ester over a copper-chromite catalyst to the corresponding fatty alcohol plus methanol byproduct, the route used by natural-fatty-alcohol producers such as Oxiteno. Modeled with methyl palmitate as the ester feed (the C16 member of the coconut/palm-kernel-derived ester slate these plants actually run); a flash removes unreacted hydrogen for recycle and a column recovers methanol overhead from the crude fatty alcohol.

The flowsheet

The solved topology — every unit op's real duty, conversion, or split, read straight off a genuine converged solve.

Ester FEED
H2 FEED
MIX
RX
Flash
H2 Recycle VENT
feed
dist
btms
COL
Methanol Product
Alcohol Product

The stream table

Every stream's flow, temperature, pressure, and composition — real converged numbers, not placeholders.

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