Sustainable epoxidation of expired palm oil–derived oleic acid via in situ peracid mechanism with applied ion resin Amberlite IR-120H: from waste to wealth

Over the last decade, there has been growing interest/global concern in synthesizing products from renewable energy sources. Epoxides are intermediate products that can be used to produce other materials such as polyols through the epoxidation of vegetable oils. In this study, expired palm oil was used to synthesize epoxides via in situ peracid mechanism utilizing an ion exchange resin catalyst. Based on the results, the relative conversion to oxirane (RCO) is 63%. The following optimum process parameters were used for the epoxidation process: (1) stirring speed: 600 rpm, (2) reaction temperature: 90 °C, and (3) formic acid/unsaturated fatty acid molar ratio: 1:1. Besides that, a mathematical model was developed by using the numerical integration Runge Kutta 4th Order method using MATLAB software. Based on the results of the kinetic study, the summation of error is smaller, and therefore, the kinetic model is validated.