Patent ID: 9567457
Date: 2017-02-14
CPC Classifications: C08C,C08L

Claim:
1. An organic solvent-based process for the removal of rubber from TKS plant matter comprising: a. utilizing a slurry containing (i) plant matter from TKS, the plant matter comprising bagasse, rubber and resin; (ii) at least one non-polar organic solvent; and (iii) at least one polar organic solvent, wherein the slurry contains 10-50% by weight plant matter, 50-90% by weight of (ii) and (iii) combined, and 0.5-10 weight % water from the plant matter; b. removing a majority of the bagasse from the slurry to produce a miscella and a first bagasse portion; c. optionally adding additional polar organic solvent, non-polar organic solvent or a combination thereof to the miscella to form a reduced viscosity miscella where any polar organic solvent and non-polar organic solvent may be the same or different than those utilized in (a) and where the amount of any additional polar organic solvent that is added is less than the amount that causes the rubber contained with the reduced viscosity miscella to coagulate; d. removing 80-95 weight % of bagasse from the miscella resulting from (b) or (c) (based on the total weight of bagasse present in the miscella) to form a purified miscella and a second bagasse fraction wherein the majority of the bagasse that is removed has a particle size of less than 105 microns; e. optionally treating the purified miscella to remove additional bagasse thereby producing a clarified rubber solution that contains 0.01-1% by weight of bagasse (based on the total weight of bagasse present in the slurry) wherein 90-99% of the additional bagasse that is removed has a particle size greater than 45 microns; f. increasing the relative amount of polar organic solvent as compared to non-polar organic solvent within the clarified rubber solution resulting from (e) or within the purified miscella resulting from (d) so as to coagulate the rubber; and g. producing solid purified rubber from the coagulated rubber where when said solid purified rubber contains 0.8 weight % volatile matter it also contains 0.05-0.5 weight % dirt, 0.2-1.5 weight % ash and 0.1-4 weight % resin; wherein at least (a)-(e) are conducted at a temperature or temperatures of 10-80° C. and a pressure of 35 to 1000 kPa.