Variables affecting the yield of normal oleic acid produced by the catalytic hydrogenation of cottonseed and peanut oils

Summary 1. The effects of the following factors have been investigated in the hydrogenation of cottonseed and peanut oils: temperature, concentration of catalyst, pressure of the hydrogen, degree of agitation, and nature of the nickel catalyst. 2. The formation of stearic acid was found to be repressed and the formation of “iso-oleic” acid simultaneously favored by increasing the temperature, increasing the catalyst concentration, decreasing the pressure, and decreasing the agitation. 3. The nature of the nickel catalyst, as influenced by its method of preparation, may have a large effect on the composition of the hydrogenated product. One of the nickel catalysts investigated formed excessive amounts of iso-oleic acid without being correspondingly selective. 4. In the hydrogenation of cottonseed oil, within a comparatively wide range of conditions, the production of total solid acids with a given catalyst is relatively constant, since the conditions leading to the formation of stearic and iso-oleic acid are mutually exclusive. Extremes in either direction, however, lead to the production of excessive amounts of total solid acids. 5. Peanut oil is a more suitable raw material than cottonseed oil for the production of normal oleic acid, because of its initially greater content of this constituent and its lesser content of linoleic acid. 6. On the assumption that a quantitative separation could be made of the liquid acids from the solid acid fraction (saturated and iso-oleic) of the hydrogenated products, leaving minor amounts of unhydrogenated linoleic acid as an impurity in the separated normal oleic acid, the following maximum yields of “impure normal oleic acid” could be obtained: from cottonseed oil, 56 per cent of oleic acid of 85 per cent purity, 53 per cent of oleic acid of 90 per cent purity, and 48 per cent of oleic acid of 95 per cent purity; and from peanut oil, 70 per cent of oleic acid of 85 per cent purity, 68 per cent of oleic acid of 90 per cent purity, and 66 per cent of oleic acid of 95 per cent purity. Presented before the American Oil Chemists’ Society, Houston, Texas, April 30 to May 1, 1942.