JPH06102799B2 - Continuous soap manufacturing method - Google Patents

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention [Industrial applications]

The present invention relates to a method for continuously producing soap by neutralizing a fatty acid and an alkaline agent.

[Prior art]

Conventionally, as a method for producing soap, a neutral fat and oil saponification method, an ester saponification method and a fatty acid neutralization method are generally known. The neutral fat and oil saponification method is a method for producing soap by saponifying animal and vegetable fats and oils with an alkali metal hydroxide, and has the advantage that it is not necessary to produce fatty acids or lower alcohol esters from fats and oils. It has the drawbacks that high-quality oils and fats are required to improve the quality, and that a complicated process is required to purify glycerin produced as a by-product. In addition, the ester saponification method makes it easy to purify the fatty acid lower alcohol ester as a raw material and can obtain high-quality soap, but the reaction rate at the time of saponification is slow and a complicated process for removing the lower alcohol by-produced. Has the disadvantage that it is necessary. On the other hand, the fatty acid neutralization method is a method in which a fatty acid obtained by decomposing fats and oils is used as a raw material to produce soap by a neutralization reaction with an aqueous alkaline agent solution, and the fatty acid that is the raw material is easily purified and is of high quality. It is the most commonly used method because it is easy to obtain a good soap. For example, as an apparatus for continuously producing soap by this fatty acid neutralization method, a circulation route of a fatty acid and an alkaline agent aqueous solution, a supply means of each of the fatty acid and the alkaline agent aqueous solution to the circulation route, a raw material and Examples of the continuous production apparatus include a circulation pump for circulating the neutralized product and a reactor section having a reaction tank with a stirrer as a mixing means incorporated in the circulation path.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention]

By the way, in this apparatus, since the reactor part is provided with a reaction tank for accumulating and stirring the fatty acid and the alkaline agent aqueous solution, it is necessary to constantly supply the raw material to the circulation path to the extent that the reaction tank is filled. Therefore, the amount of stay in the route is relatively large, and the stay time is inevitably long. Therefore, the fatty acid may deteriorate with time, and the formed soap may be adversely affected. Further, in this apparatus, in order to sufficiently stir and neutralize the raw material, an aqueous solution having a low concentration of the alkaline agent must be used, but in that case, the drying load on the neutralized product will inevitably increase. However, there is a problem in that the equipment required for the drying process must be large. Therefore, the technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to make it possible to use a high-concentration aqueous solution of an alkaline agent in order to reduce the dry addition, and to shorten the time required for the neutralization reaction with a fatty acid to deteriorate the quality. And to downsize the reactor section and the drying equipment in which the neutralization reaction is performed.

[Means, actions and effects for solving the problems]

In order to solve the above technical problems, the method for continuously producing soap according to the present invention is configured as follows. That is, a fatty acid and alkaline agent aqueous solution are continuously supplied into the circulation route of the reactor section by using a device comprising a reactor section having a static mixer in the circulation route for neutralizing the fatty acid and alkaline agent aqueous solution, and , By producing a neutralized product of the fatty acid and the aqueous solution of the alkaline agent by circulating this in the route, and continuously taking out a part of the neutralized product circulating in the route from the route to produce soap Is configured. In this configuration, the fatty acid has, for example, 8 carbon atoms.
~ 24 vegetable oils and fats having an alkyl group or an alkenyl group, animal fats and oils, fatty acids obtained from these mixed fats and oils,
Alternatively, a mixture of these fatty acids can be used. Further, as vegetable oils and fats, palm kernels, palm stearin, coconut oil, olive oil, castor oil, sesame oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, tung oil, peanut oil, rapeseed oil, etc., animal fats and oils, beef tallow, lard, whale fat Etc. can be used. As the alkali agent, alkali metal hydroxides such as sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide or salts thereof can be used alone or in combination. In the above configuration, the fatty acid and the aqueous solution of the alkaline agent are mixed and neutralized by the action of the static mixer provided in the circulation route while circulating in the circulation route. Then, a part of the neutralized product circulating in the circulation route is continuously taken out from the route to produce soap. In addition, the fatty acid and the alkaline agent aqueous solution in an amount corresponding to the amount of the neutralized product continuously extracted from the circulation route are sequentially supplied into the route, so that a predetermined amount of the raw material and the neutralized product are constantly circulated in the route. Therefore, the soap can be continuously produced. With this configuration, unlike the conventional method, the neutralization reaction of the raw material is not performed in the reaction tank, but the neutralization reaction is performed by the raw material flowing in the circulation path through the static mixer. Is performed. Therefore, since it is not necessary to provide a reaction tank, the volume of the reaction system can be reduced, and as a result, the amount of the raw material and the neutralized material retained can be small, so that the neutralization reaction can be efficiently and economically performed. Furthermore, deterioration of the raw materials and the neutralized product due to heat can be prevented, and high-quality soap can be obtained. In the present invention, considering the balance between downsizing of the device and shortening of the residence time, the value of the volume flow rate of the neutralized product circulating in the circulation path is defined as the value of the volume flow rate of the neutralized product taken out from the circulation path. The circulation ratio obtained by dividing is set to 1 to 50. In addition, this configuration uses a static mixer that has a good mixing effect even for highly viscous substances, so it is possible to handle highly viscous neutralized products obtained by using highly concentrated alkaline agent aqueous solutions. Therefore, the drying load in the drying step after the neutralization reaction can be significantly reduced, and the equipment required therefor can be reduced. Therefore, it is possible to significantly reduce the size of the entire soap continuous production apparatus. In particular, in order to sufficiently mix the raw materials, and to keep the viscosity of the neat soap produced to an appropriate level and reduce the drying load as much as possible,
In the present invention, an aqueous alkaline agent solution containing 30 to 60% by weight of an alkaline agent is used. The reaction temperature is set to 120 to 150 ° C. This is because if the temperature is higher than this, the hue and odor of the resulting soap are adversely affected, and if the temperature is lower than this, the speed of the neutralization reaction and the fluidity of the raw material and the neutralized product decrease. Further, as described above, in this method, the retention amount and the retention time of the raw material and the neutralized product can be shortened, so that the deterioration of the raw material due to the influence of heat can be more effectively prevented.

【Example】

The method for continuously producing soap according to the embodiment of the present invention shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 will be described in detail below. FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a reactor section 10 for carrying out a neutralization reaction between a fatty acid and an aqueous alkali metal solution in this continuous soap producing apparatus. As shown in the figure, the reactor section 10 includes tanks 2a, 3a and valves 2b, 3b that constitute a circulation path 1 for a fatty acid and an alkali metal aqueous solution, and supply means 2, 3 for the fatty acid and the alkali metal aqueous solution. , A circulation pump 4 for circulating the raw material and the neutralized product in the circulation path 1, and a static mixer 5 as a means for mixing the raw materials incorporated in the pipeline of the circulation path 1.
And a discharge port 6 for taking out the generated neutralized product. The static mixer 5 is, for example, as shown in FIG. 2, a blade 5a twisted by 180 ° is continuously arranged with a 90 ° offset as a partition member for partitioning the circulation path 1 into a plurality of parts along the path 1. The type as described can be used. As the mixer 5, various currently known structures may be appropriately combined and used depending on the properties of the raw materials. These static mixers include Sulzer mixer (Sulzer, Switzerland),
Ross ISG Mixer (Charless & Ross, USA), Square Mixer (Sakura Mfg. Co., Ltd.), Shimazaki Pipe Mixer (Koritsu Kogyo Co., Ltd.), High Mixer (Toray Co., Ltd.), Comax Mixer (Komax Systems, USA) Lightning・ Inliner (Mixing Equipment,
USA, Multi Flux Mixer (Dow Cemical)
, USA), BASF mixer (BASF, West Germany),
N foam roll mixer (Firma Bran & Lubbe
Company, West Germany) and the like. Further, the number and positions of the mixers 5, the positions of the raw material supply means 2, 3 and the pump 4 can be arbitrarily set. Next, an example of soap production performed using this apparatus is shown below. (Production Example 1) First, as raw materials, a fatty acid containing distilled beef tallow fatty acid and a distilled coconut oil fatty acid at a ratio of 80% by weight and 20% by weight, respectively, and an aqueous solution containing sodium hydroxide at a ratio of 48% by weight were prepared. used. Then, the fatty acid and sodium hydroxide aqueous solution, each of which was kept at a temperature of 65 ° C, were added to 40 Kg / Hr
And, at the speed of 13.5 Kg / Hr, the inner diameter of the conduit is 41.2 mm, the total length is 7.6.
It was supplied to the circulation route 1 with m and a retention amount of 9.6. In this circulation path 1, four static mixers 5 made by Noritake Co., Ltd., each having 12 blades and having an inner diameter of 30 mm and a length of 700 mm, were used while keeping the reaction temperature at 135 ° C. did. Under the above conditions, the circulation ratio was set to 18, that is, the circulation flow rate in the route was set to 963 Kg / Hr to produce a neutralized product, that is, neat soap. The neat soap (water content 19.2% by weight) with a reaction rate of 99% or more thus obtained was flash-dried under normal pressure to reduce the water content to 15% by weight, and air at 20 ° C was added to the dried product at 50 kg / hr. The water is sent at a speed of 2 m ³ / min per
A soap chip containing 12% by weight was obtained. (Production Example 2) The same circulation route 1 and static mixer 5 as in Production Example 1 were used. However, as shown by the phantom line in FIG. 1, one Milder 304 type manufactured by EBARA CORPORATION was used as the driving mixer 7 in the circulation path 1.
Then, as the raw material, a fatty acid containing distilled palm stearin fatty acid and a distilled palm kernel fatty acid in a proportion of 50% by weight and an aqueous solution containing sodium hydroxide in a proportion of 48% by weight were used. Then, the fatty acid and the sodium hydroxide aqueous solution, each of which was kept at 65 ° C,
Circulation route 1 was fed at rates of 52 Kg / Hr and 17 Kg / Hr. The reaction temperature was set to 135 ° C. as in Production Example 1. Under the above conditions, the circulation ratio was set to 16, that is, the circulation flow rate in the route was set to 1104 Kg / Hr to produce neat soap. The neat soap with a reaction rate of 99% or more (water content 19.2% by weight) was flash-dried under atmospheric pressure to reduce the water content to 14.7% by weight, and air at 20 ° C was added to the dried product 65 Kg / Hr. A soap chip containing 12% by weight of water was obtained by feeding it at a rate of 2 m ³ / min. In each of the above production examples, neat soap containing 19.2% by weight of water was obtained by using an aqueous solution having a sodium hydroxide concentration of 48% by weight. 12% water by weight from this neat soap
The dry load (evaporated water content) Q (Kg) for obtaining 1 ton of soap chips including the product is W ₁ (Kg)
g), the water content in the generated soap chips is W ₂ (Kg), and the water content in the neat soap is A. Q = {(W ₁ −W ₂ ) / (1−A)} × A− Since it is obtained from W ₂ , Q = {(1000−120) / (1−0.192)} × 0.192−120 ≈89 kg. On the other hand, in the same way, in order to obtain a soap chip containing 12% by weight of water, when an aqueous solution having a sodium hydroxide concentration of 25.5% by weight was used in a conventional device having a reaction tank in the reactor part, the neat soap obtained was Contained 33.0% by weight of water. Therefore, the drying load Q'in this case is Q '= {(1000-120) / (1-0.33)} * 0.33-120.apprxeq.313 kg. That is, it is about 3.5 times the dry load in the present invention. As described above, according to the above configuration, the reactor section can be downsized because there is no reaction tank, and the use of a high-concentration sodium hydroxide solution can reduce the drying load and the equipment therefor. Therefore, the soap manufacturing apparatus as a whole can be downsized. Further, since the apparatus is downsized, the average residence time of the raw material and the neutralized product can be shortened, so that a soap of good quality with less deterioration due to heat can be obtained.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram showing a reactor section of a continuous soap producing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a partition member of a static mixer. 1 ... Circulation path, 2, 3 ... Supply means, 2a, 3a ... Tank,
2b, 3b ... Valve, 4 ... Pump, 5 ... Static mixer, 6 ... Discharge port, 7 ... Driving mixer, 10 ... Reactor section

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A continuous soap production method using an apparatus comprising a reactor section having a static mixer in a circulation path for neutralizing a fatty acid and an aqueous alkaline solution containing 30 to 60% by weight of an alkaline agent, The fatty acid and the alkaline agent aqueous solution are continuously supplied into the circulation route of the reactor part, and are circulated in the route under the reaction temperature of 120 to 150 ° C. While producing a hydrate, a part of the neutralized product circulating in the route is continuously taken out from the route, and the value of the volume flow rate of the neutralized substance circulating in the circulating route is determined from the circulating route. A method for continuously producing soap, characterized in that the circulation ratio of the neutralized product obtained by dividing the volumetric flow rate of the neutralized product taken out is set to 1 to 50.