Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

Hiroshi Yamamoto

Yukio Kasori

Shigetomi Kawata

Yasuaki Koyama

Nobuyuki Kawase

A process for producing a sucrose fatty acid ester wherein the sucrose fatty acid ester is recovered from a reaction mixture prepared by reacting sucrose with a fatty acid alkyl ester in the presence of an alkali catalyst by using dimethyl sulfoxide as a reaction solvent, the process comprising: (i) subjecting the reaction mixture to a first liquid-liquid extraction by using a hardly water-miscible organic solvent, which is selected from an alcohol having at least 4 carbon atoms and a ketone having at least 4 carbon atoms, and water as extractants, with regulating the pH value of an aqueous phase to 3 to 7.5, to thereby extract dimethyl sulfoxide in the reaction mixture into the aqueous phase, and the sucrose fatty acid ester into an organic solvent phase; (ii) subjecting an organic solvent solution containing the sucrose fatty acid ester thus obtained as the organic solvent phase in the first liquid-liquid extraction to a second liquid-liquid extraction by a continuous counter-current system using water, to thereby extract dimethyl sulfoxide remaining in the organic solvent solution into an aqueous phase, thus giving an organic solvent solution which is substantially free from dimethyl sulfoxide; and (iii) recovering the sucrose fatty acid ester from the organic solvent solution.

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Mie, Japan

Hiroshi Yamamoto