PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16316248
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-01
Publication Date: 2019-07
Patent Classification: ["554", "163000"]

Abstract:
A process and a plant are specified, with which free fatty acids can be obtained in a simple manner by hydrolysis of fatty acid alkyl esters, especially fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), or alternatively of fatty acid triglycerides present in oils and fats of vegetable and animal origin. According to the invention, a portion of the free fatty acids already produced is recycled back into the reaction mixture, which results in self-acceleration of the hydrolysis reaction.

Claim (Index 27):
A plant for preparation of fatty acids by hydrolysis of fatty acid alkyl esters, especially fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), or of fatty acid triglycerides, comprising the following plant components:\n a) means of providing the fatty acid alkyl esters or the fatty acid triglycerides; b) at least one hydrolysis reactor for reacting the fatty acid alkyl esters or the fatty acid triglycerides with water under hydrolysis conditions at temperatures of at least 200\u00b0 C., suitable for establishing a pressure at which the water is in the liquid phase at the reaction temperature; c) means of discharging a hydrolysis product comprising free fatty acids (FFA), water, unconverted fatty acid alkyl esters and the corresponding alkanol, especially methanol, or unconverted fatty acid triglycerides and glycerol; d) a phase separation apparatus suitable for separating the hydrolysis product under phase separation conditions into a light phase comprising free fatty acids and unconverted fatty acid alkyl esters or unconverted fatty acid triglycerides and a heavy phase comprising water and methanol or glycerol, means of feeding the hydrolysis product to the phase separation apparatus, means of discharging the light phase, means of discharging the heavy phase; e) a first separation apparatus which works by a thermal separation process, suitable for separating the light phase into a first separation product enriched in free fatty acids and a second separation product enriched in unconverted fatty acid alkyl esters or in unconverted fatty acid triglycerides, the second separation product further comprising a proportion of free fatty acids, means of feeding the light phase into the first separation apparatus, means of discharging a first separation product from the first separation apparatus, means of discharging a second separation product from the first separation apparatus; f) means of discharging the first separation product as FFA product; and g) means of recycling at least a portion of the second separation product to the at least one hydrolysis reactor.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 44.0
- Percentile: 99.0
- Lexical Diversity: 1.54545
- Patent Class: 554.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: True
- Related Applications: ['13376310', '12744761', '12287779', '15984796', '13597304']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.6636803162351913
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.5019083576649882
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.647503120378171
- Mean Citation Score: 240.792
- Max Citation Score: 243.58966
- Similarity Product: 159.95203391957995

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 0
- Claim Label 103: 0
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 0
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test