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 16):
A process for preparing fatty acids by hydrolysis of fatty acid alkyl esters, especially fatty acid methyl esters (FAME), or of fatty acid triglycerides, the process comprising the following steps:\n a) providing the fatty acid alkyl esters or the fatty acid triglycerides; b) reacting the fatty acid alkyl esters or the fatty acid triglycerides with water under hydrolysis conditions at temperatures of at least 200\u00b0 C., where the pressure is chosen such that the water is in the liquid phase and where no external substance extraneous to the process is added as homogeneous or heterogeneous catalyst; c) 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) feeding the hydrolysis product to a phase separation apparatus and 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; e) feeding the light phase into a first separation apparatus that works by a thermal separation process and 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 separation being conducted in such a way that the second separation product further comprises a proportion of free fatty acids; f) discharging the first separation product as FFA product; and g) recycling at least a portion of the second separation product to reaction step b).

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): 0.6650418682125401
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.4951538186983487
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.6480530632611209
- Mean Citation Score: 240.792
- Max Citation Score: 243.58966
- Similarity Product: 176.45638933526752

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

Dataset: test