and a pressure of 3 mbar the product was filtered while hot through bleaching earth and a layer of activated carbon the stanol ester product contained free fatty acids 0 02 fatty acid methyl esters 0 3 and unesterified sterol derived compounds 0 8 the melting point of the stanol ester was 36 39 u00b0 c according to dsc determination 295 g of a sterol derived from vegetable oil 25 campesterol 55 u03b2 sitosterol and 15 stigmasterol was slurried into 705 g of coconut fatty acid methyl ester which contains primarily c 6 c 14 fatty acid esters a pd c catalyst was added 5 pd on a carbon support 0 2 palladium of the amount of sterol the temperature was raised to 120 u00b0 c and the reaction autoclave was rinsed with nitrogen after the nitrogen had first been replaced by a hydrogen atmosphere hydrogen was directed to the reaction mixture for 110 min during the hydrogenation the pressure of the reaction mixture was 1 2 atm the hydrogenation catalyst was removed from the hot reaction mixture by filtration thereafter 3 g of sodium methylate was added as the esterification catalyst and the esterification reaction was allowed to occur at a temperature of 125 u00b0 c for 1 5 h at a pressure of 5 mbar whereby the formed methanol was at the same time removed the ester product was washed twice with water and the excess methyl ester reagent and impurities were steam distilled first at a temperature of 140 145 u00b0 c and a pressure of 7 9 mbar finally the temperature was raised to 200 205 u00b0 c pressure 3 4 mbar in order to remove the higher boiling.