Patent ID: 8835662

Claim:
Continuous process for the oxidative cleavage of vegetable oils containing triglycerides of unsaturated carboxylic acids, for the obtainment of saturated carboxylic acids, characterized by comprising the steps of: a) feeding to a first continuous reactor at least a vegetable oil and an oxidizing compound in the presence of a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of the olefinic double bond to obtain an intermediate compound containing vicinal diols; b) feeding to a second continuous reactor said intermediate compound, oxygen or a compound containing oxygen, and a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of said diols to carboxylic groups, to obtain saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) and triglycerides containing saturated monocarboxylic acids with more than one acid function (ii); c) transferring the product of step b) to an apparatus suitable to separate the saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) from the triglycerides having more than one acid function (ii); and d) hydrolyzing in a third reactor said triglycerides (ii) to obtain glycerol and saturated carboxylic acids with more than one acid function; the operations to feed reagents and to remove products taking place simultaneously for the entire duration of the process and within each step the process conditions remain substantially unchanged.