Catalysts and Network Modeling in Vegetable Oil Hydrogenation Processes

Abstract

Hydrogenation of vegetable oils is one of the earliest commercial gas-liquid- solid heterogeneous catalytic processes. usually employed to reduce the degree of unsaturation of the naturally occurring triglycerides so as to obtain new, attractive organoleptic changes, and a greater chemical stability. Due to its intrinsic challenge and to its commercial importance, the process has drawn the attention of numerous scholars. Accordingly, there exists a great deal of work which has both generated empirical rules and allowed us to tackle many of the theoretical aspects of the problem as well.