Production of epoxy compounds from unsaturated fatty acids derived from crystallization of used cooking oil

Abstract

Epoxy compound is a compound produced from an epoxidation of vegetable oil or a natural oil with an unsaturated bond. Epoxy compound can be applied as a stabilizer and plasticizers in polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and can be used as an antioxidant in natural rubber processing, as a surfactant, anti-corrosive additive agent in lubricants and pesticide raw materials. The purpose of this research was to utilize used cooking oil as raw material of making the epoxy compound. In this research, used cooking oil was separated into unsaturated and saturated acids. Unsaturated fatty acid was reacted with hexane, glacial acetic acid, H2O2 and sulphuric acid as catalysts with the variable of 1.5%, 2.1%, 2.5%, 3.1% and 3.5%. The reacion time was also varied for 60, 120, 180, 240 and 300 min. The results showed the highest oxirane oxygen number in the epoxy compound was 2.422. The conversion of oxirane oxygen reached 68.612% and the lowest iodine number was 0.560 g I 2 /100 g raw material at the condition of 300 min reaction time and by using 2.5% catalyst.