Synthesis of bio-polyol from epoxidized palm oleic acid by homogeneous catalyst

Abstract

In recent years, many efforts have been made to epoxidize palm oil in response to rising demand for environmentally safe epoxides that generated from vegetable oils. This experiment has studied two methods: the one-step method (continuous epoxidation-hydroxylation) and the two-step method (a separate process of epoxidation followed by hydroxylation) for bio-polyol production. Based on the results of the experiment, the one-step technique experiment was deemed to be the best approach because it did not require for the process to be stopped and because it is a continuous process, it takes less time to manufacture the bio-polyol and costs less because the catalyst is only used once. The relative conversion to oxirane (RCO) percentage was at its maximum (82%) after 30 min of epoxidation reaction. FTIR spectroscopy shows the absorption peak at a wavelength of 3300 cm−1 indicates the presence of hydroxyl groups when polyol was analyzed. Overall, a polyol with a high yield was successfully produced from palm oleic acid by using continuous hydroxylation of epoxidized oleic acid.