How is vegetable glycerin made?

Question

I know that it comes from coconut or palm oils generally, but how is it made? What refining processed does it go through?

Answer 1

Coconut and Palm oils are naturally occurring mixtures of various triglycerides.  Each triglyceride is composed of three fatty acids which have been esterified with glycerin (also called glycerol).

Hydrolysis of the original triglycerides breaks the ester bond and yields fatty acids and glycerin.  To identify this product as different from glycerin produced from fats and oils of animal origin, it is called vegetable glycerin.