Abstract
Epoxidation of soybean oil is carried out at different conditions such as the feed ratio of C=C/CH3COOH/H2O2 (1:1:1, 1:1:2, 1:2:1, 1:2:2, 1:2:4), reaction temperature (50 °C, 65 °C) and reaction time (3–7 h). Physicochemical properties of the reagent and product such as viscosity at 40 °C and 100 °C, viscosity index, iodine index as well as FT-IR spectral analysis are studied to find out suitable epoxidation reaction conditions. The experiment results showed that conversion of C=C in soybean oil through epoxidation could reach high value (96.0 %) at 65 °C for 5 h of reaction with the C=C/CH3COOH/H2O2 molar ratio of 1:2:4 and viscosity index of epoxidised product was 156. IR results of the epoxidised oil obtained also exhibits that the peaks characteristic for the C=C bond disappear and the peaks characterising for epoxy rings are observed in the product, supporting evidence for epoxidation.
Epoxidation of soybean oil blended with waste cooking oil (90:10) is performed at the above suitable condition. The obtained results exhibited that C=C conversion of blended oil could still reach above 98 % and viscosity index of epoxidised oil is 151. The FT-IR spectral analysis of the epoxidised oil also clearly shows the appearance of peaks characterizing the epoxy ring.
