Ring‐Opening of Epoxidized Waste Cooking Oil by Hydroxylation Process: Optimization and Kinetic Modelling

Numerous academics worldwide are interested in utilizing waste as a resource to produce an epoxide. Epoxidation/ring‐opening of oxirane is a common method for producing polyols from vegetable oil. This study examined the effect of the catalyst type and loading on the ring opening of epoxide groups by utilizing performic acid generated in situ. The outcomes demonstrated that the zeolite catalyst at 0.2 g loading produced the highest conversion of oxirane (RCO%). The FTIR data showed that the epoxy ring group‘s location caused the hydroxyl group‘s (O−H) to be observed at 3100–3600 cm−1 in the placement of the epoxy ring group (C−O−C) at 1210–1250 cm−1. Finally, optimization and kinetic modeling using artificial neural networks, abbreviated as Neural Network, is a model of the human brain that is ed, simulated, and trained to obtain the value of R closest to 1. Studies on the epoxidation of fatty acids have gained much interest in recent years owing to the increasing demand for eco‐friendly epoxides derived from vegetable oils. Epoxidation is a reaction in which the C=C bonds in the fatty acid chains are converted into epoxides by the addition of oxygen atoms. The epoxidation of oils and unsaturated fatty acids has been widely used to produce oxirane, which is valuable to produce various fine chemicals. Epoxidation is performed using organic peracid and it is widely used in industrial applications because of its low cost. Epoxide ring opening (also known as epoxide cleavage or epoxide ring degradation) can occur during the epoxidation of vegetable oils.