Patent 7759505 was granted and assigned to Kao Corporation on July, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present invention relates to a method of producing a fatty acid ester, including treating a starting fatty acid ester with an adsorbent to adsorb sulfur contained in the starting fatty acid ester, the adsorbent containing at least one metal selected from Ni and Cu in an amount of 10 to 85 percent by weight as a metal oxide(s) thereof per all the adsorbent, having a pore volume having a pore diameter range from 20 to 200 nm within 0.15 to 1.0 mL/g and then a method of producing an alcohol, including hydrogenating a fatty acid ester obtained by the above shown method of producing a fatty acid ester.