The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 12, 2000
Filed:
Jan. 26, 1999
Charles E Sumner, Jr, Kingsport, TN (US);
John D Moncier, Church Hill, TN (US);
Jeffrey S Kanel, Hurricane, WV (US);
Mary K Foster, Jonesborough, TN (US);
Eastman Chemical Company, Kingsport, TN (US);
Abstract
The invention relates to method for separating tocol from a tocol-containing admixture by heating the tocol-containing admixture composed a tocol, a fatty acid, and an esterifying compound to esterify the fatty acid to produce a second tocol admixture composed of the tocol, the esterified fatty acid, and the unesterified fatty acid; distilling the tocol-containing admixture with the esterified fatty acid to remove the unesterified fatty acid from the tocol admixture to produce a tocol admixture composed of the tocol with substantially removed unesterified fatty acid; distilling the tocol admixture for a sufficient time and temperature to substantially remove the tocol from the tocol admixture to produce a tocol admixture composed of the removed tocol and a non-tocol component; and extracting the tocol from the tocol admixture with an extraction solvent composed of a polar, organic solvent that is miscible with water to produce a two phase system composed of a first phase containing the majority of the extraction solvent and the second phase, wherein the selectivity of the extraction solvent for tocol with respect to the non-tocol component is greater than unity, and removing the first phase from the second phase, with the proviso that the extraction solvent is not a neat alcohol.