Association extraction for vitamin E recovery from deodorizer distillate by in situ formation of deep eutectic solvent

An innovative intensified vitamin E (VE) recovery process from the methylated oil deodorizer distillates (MODDs) was proposed, where VE was in situ transferred into a deep eutectic solvent (DES) with an organic salt. To design the process, the chlorine based quaternary ammonium salts were primarily investigated, and [N_4,4,4,4]Cl was selected as an association solvent which can efficiently form DES with α‐tocopherol of the representative compound of VE. Based on the determined phase diagram of the DES freezing points, four phase regions were classified, and the effect of the [N_4,4,4,4]Cl/tocopherol ratio and temperature on the extraction performance and phase transformation was figured out. Moreover, an intensified association extraction process via in situ forming DES of α‐tocopherol with [N_4,4,4,4]Cl was designed and validated by experiments. VE products were finally obtained from both model MODD (purity of 99.63%) and practical MODDs (purity of >79.18%), which verifies the excellent extraction efficiency for the proposed recovery method. © 2016 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 2212–2220, 2017     

Original synthesis of polyvinyl butyral with a green deep eutectic solvent and a weakly polyacrylic acid from polyvinyl alcohol and the impacts of the chains structures of polyvinyl alcohol

In this work, an environmentally-friendly deep eutectic solvent (DES) was employed as a catalyst to generate polyvinyl butyral (PVB) resins from polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with a weakly acidic polymer (polyacrylic acid [PAA]) as an emulsifier. Finally, high viscosity PVB resins with molecular weight of 110,000–200,000 g · mol⁻¹ and acetalization degree above 83% were successfully synthesized, which was found to satisfy the requirements for interlayer films between safety glass. Furthermore, it was well proved that the properties of PVB resins immensely depend on the molecular structures of the PVA. The molecular weight of the PVB, independent of alcoholic degrees of the PVA, indicated an upward trend with the increase of the molecular weight of the PVA. As for these four PVBs with high molecular weight, the T_g was sensitive to the content of hydroxyl and acetal groups rather than molecular weight, associated with the inter- or intra-molecule hydrogen bond between  OH. PVB-1799 and PVB-1797 had higher T_i and T_g than that of PVB-1788 and PVB-1795 because the former had low contents of vinyl acetate group (VAc) and alcohol hydroxyl group (VOH). The tensile strength of PVBs was all higher than 30 Mpa, and the elongation at break was about 300% due to their high molecular weights.     

Alkanol removal from the apolar phase of a two-liquid phase bioconversion system. Part 1: Comparison of a less volatile and a more volatile in-situ extraction solvent for the separation of 1-octanol by distillation

Biocatalytic systems can be used for the regio- and stereospecific synthesis of oxidized alkanes and aromatic compounds, such as aliphatic and aromatic alcohols, aldehydes and epoxides. These reactions are typically carried out in two-liquid phase media. The biocatalyst is usually a natural microorganism, often a Pseudomonas, or a genetically altered host, a Pseudomonas or E. coli recombinant typically, which grows in the aqueous phase, while the substrate and product are present in an organic bulk phase. Oxidation products formed in these systems must be purified after separation of the two liquid phases. We have evaluated the performance of distillation for the separation of the product 1-octanol by examining a more volatile (octane) and a less volatile (hexadecene) in-situ extraction system. The separation performance of the two systems has been compared based on recovery efficiency, energy cost and number of required process units. Results showed that a less volatile extractant compared favorably in terms of number of product separation unit steps, decreased operating and energy cost to the use of a more volatile extraction solvent. In addition, a major disadvantage of the more volatile in-situ extraction process was the coloring of the bottom product of the first distillation step, in which the product is contained in this case. Such modifications can be implemented into an upstream and downstream process of bioconversions to improve the overall system and to reduce downstream processing cost. © 1998 SCI