Recycling vs. Reprocessing. Optimization of a Gossypol Production Process

DANIELA S. LAORETANI; OSCAR A. IRIBARREN

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH & DESIGN

INST CHEMICAL ENGINEERS

Año: 2015 vol. 100 p. 135 - 147

0263-8762

Three processes to obtain Gossypol Acetic Acid from the soapstock residue of oil refineries were compared inthis work. The first process is the originally proposed by Dowd and Pelitire (2001. Ind. Crops Prod. 14, 113) in which the mother liquor from the last crystallization step still contains an appreciable amount of gossypol which is lost as a process residual stream. The second process recycles the mother liquor to the hydrolysis first step of the process, following the heuristic of the traditional process design procedure by Douglas (1988. Conceptual Design of Chemical Processes. McGraw Hill, New York, NY), which increases product yield. While the third process adds a new downstream processing line to reprocess the mother liquor. This last alternative renders a slightly lower product yield than Process 2 but requires a smaller investment cost, exhibiting the best economic performance.