Abstract: The disclosed invention refers to a process for obtaining fatty acid alkyl esters, rosin acids and sterols from crude tall oil (CTO), which is characterized by the following steps: (a) reacting the free fatty acids present in the CTO with lower alcohols; (b) esterifying the sterols in the CTO with boric acid or transesterifying the sterols with a catalyst; (c) separating the fatty acid lower alkyl esters and rosin acids from the remaining sterol borate esters or sterol esters of fatty acids to produce a stream of sterol esters; (d) separating the fatty acid alkyl esters from the rosin acids to produce a first stream of fatty acid alky esters and a second stream of rosin acids; and (e) converting the sterol esters into the free sterols to produce a third stream of free sterols.

Abstract: The disclosed invention provides a process for obtaining fatty acid alkyl esters, rosin acids and sterols from crude tall oil (CTO), characterised in that the CTO is subjected to the following steps: (a) reacting the free fatty acids present in the CTO with lower alcohols; (b) separating the fatty acid lower alkyl esters thus obtained from the remaining CTO to produce a first stream of fatty acid esters; (c) esterifying the sterols in the remaining CTO with boric acid; (d) separating the remaining rosin acids from the sterol borates previously obtained to produce a second stream of rosin acids; and (e) converting said sterol borates into the free sterols to produce a third stream of free sterols.

Abstract: The disclosed invention refers to a process for obtaining fatty acid alkyl esters, rosin acids and sterols from crude tall oil (CTO), which is characterised by the following steps: (a) reacting the free fatty acids present in the CTO with lower alcohols; (b) esterifying the sterols in the CTO with boric acid or transesterifying the sterols with a catalyst; (c) separating the fatty acid lower alkyl esters and rosin acids from the remaining sterol borate esters or sterol esters of fatty acids to produce a stream of sterol esters; (d) separating the fatty acid alkyl esters from the rosin acids to produce a first stream of fatty acid alky esters and a second stream of rosin acids; and (e) converting the sterol esters into the free sterols to produce a third stream of free sterols.

Abstract: Process for the preparation of polyamides comprising the steps of A) reacting a soybean oil condensate obtained from the deodorization of refined soybean oil and which contains less than 30% by weight of free and esterified oleic acid based on the total weight of free and esterified fatty acids in said condensate, with a C.sub.1-4 alkanol in the presence of a zinc oxide catalyst to convert free fatty acids and fatty acid glyceride esters to fatty acid C.sub.1-4 alkyl esters;B) removing excess C.sub.1-4 alkanol, volatile reaction by-products, water, and the zinc oxide catalyst from the resulting reaction mixture;C) heating the reaction mixture from step B) under vacuum to obtain a distillate of fatty acid C.sub.1-4 alkyl esters;D) separating the distillate from step C) into a fraction containing mostly C.sub.16-18 saturated fatty acid C.sub.1-4 alkyl esters and a second fraction containing mostly C.sub.16-18 unsaturated fatty acid C.sub.1-4 alkyl esters wherein the oleic acid C.sub.