Fat splitting

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Abstract
Fat splitting, particularly the continuous, high pressure, countercurrent hydrolysis of fats and oils, typified by the Colgate‐Emery or modified processes, represents the technological cornerstone for today's American fatty acid industry. Internationally, other methods such as Twitchell or batch autoclave “medium‐pressure” catalyzed or uncatalyzed splitting are still important. All industrial fat splitting methods have as their objectives the attainment of a high rate of hydrolysis together with a high degree of completeness. This objective is achieved, more or less, by the proper optimum balance of: (a) use of excess water; (b) selection of appropriate combination of temperature and pressure to optimize the solubility of liquid water in the fat phases with or without use of suitable “water‐in‐oil” emulsifiers; (c) use or nonuse of acidic catalyst (rarely basic catalysts); and (d) removal of byproduct glycerol. Significant conditions and details in fat splitting by the important commercial processes are described.

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