The present invention relates to process for purifying renewable feedstock comprising at least one acidulated soap-stock, wherein said process comprises the steps, where the renewable feedstock comprising at least one fatty acid is treated in a treating step with an aqueous medium, and a first stream comprising water and a second stream comprising fatty acids are obtained, and the second stream is obtained as purified renewable feedstock.

A process is disclosed for fractionating biomass-based material. The process includes evaporating an evaporable part of biomass-based material in a short path evaporator, SPE, to produce a depitched lights fraction in liquid form, and a heavier pitch fraction. The depitched lights fraction may contain depitched tall oil in liquid form, and the heavier pitch fraction may contain tall oil pitch, TOP.

The invention is characterised in the steps of a) performing a first separation of the mixture in a first centrifugal separator, resulting in a first heavy fraction comprised of the heavy phase with only small amounts of impurities in the form of the light phase and a first light fraction comprising of the light phase with impurities in form of the heavy phase; and b) performing a second separation of the first light fraction in a second hermetic centrifugal separator of purificator type, resulting in a second heavy fraction comprised of the heavy phase with impurities in the form of the light phase and a second light fraction comprised of the light phase with only small amounts of impurities in the form of the heavy phase. The invention also relates to a device.

Present invention relates to a novel process for purification of lipid material for further use as such as e.g. a source of fuel or chemicals.

A method to purify black liquor soap (BLS) from sulfur compounds is disclosed. In the BLS desulfurization method, a BLS composition is heated in an inert atmosphere and sulfur is removed via aqueous extractions with inorganic base in the absence of other chemicals such as brine, sulfate salts and carbonate salts. The purified BLS composition exhibits favorable properties, including reduced sulfur content, lower color, and improved odor characteristics. The resulting tall oil compositions, depitched tall oil compositions, tall oil distillation fractions, and products derived therefrom also show reduced sulfur content, lower color, and improved odor characteristics.

The disclosure relates to a method for refining crude tall oil, wherein the method comprises first evaporating tall oil material (10) in a first evaporator (100) whereafter the first fraction (11) is fed to a first distilling column (200) and the second fraction (12) is fed to further evaporation. The condensate(s) recovered from the further evaporation(s) is fed to a second distilling column (300). The present disclosure further concerns the use of different fractions obtained by the method for the production of biofuels or components thereof.

Method of recovering sterols from tall oil pitch which contains steryl esters. In the method the tall oil pitch is subjected to a transefterification reaction with a lower alcohol in a reaction zone to provide a reaction product mixture containing lower alkyl fatty acid esters, free sterols, and at least some unreacted steryl esters. The invention comprises separating the transesterified esters from the reaction product mixture to form a sterol rich fraction which contains free sterols and unreacted steryl esters, liberating sterols from the unreacted steryl esters to form further free sterols, and recovering and optionally purifying the free sterols. The recovery of free sterols can be increased to up to 80 wt % or more while avoiding the formation of undesired side streams containing troublesome impurities.

The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for purifying tall oil material for the production of biofuels and components thereof. The present invention relates further to hydroprocessing of the purified material to obtain biofuels and components thereof.

The present invention relates to a method and system for reducing residual soap in crude tall oil, wherein crude tall oil is supplied via piping to at least one vessel, soap number of the crude tall oil is determined using on-line measuring technique and sulphuric acid is added to the crude tall oil at a site of blending, where the dosing of the sulphuric acid is adjusted on-line to provide soap number of not more than 2.

Provided herein are rosin-containing materials, including crude tall oil (CTO), tall oil rosin (TOR), distilled tall oil (DTO), crude fatty acid (CFA), as well as methods of making thereof. The rosin-containing materials can exhibit improved color (e.g., a reduced Gardner color), reduced sulfur content, improved color stability, or a combination thereof.