Blending of vegetable oils and chemical modification by epoxidation followed by oxirane ring-opening reaction

Abstract

In this paper, vegetable oil as refined soybean oil, refined sunflower oil and their blends of different proportions have been investigated. The physicochemical properties such as viscosity, acidity value, iodine value and saponification value have been reported. From the result, the blend of vegetable oils with volume ratio at 20:80 has higher viscosity index than individual vegetable oil, as well as suitable acidity and saponification value. However, iodification of this blend is relatively high, indicating that this blend has a low oxidation stability. Hence, this mixture has been continually exposed to epoxidation reaction with the purpose of removing the presence of double bond C=C followed by oxirane-ring open reaction. The results indicate that temperature, time of reaction, molar ratio H2O2/C=C influence significantly on iodine value of obtained blend. The following conditions in epoxidation step: CH3COOH/C=C 1:1; time of reation 7h, temperature of reaction 60oC, stirring speed 500 rpm and H2O2/C=C 3:1 can reduce effectively iodine value, from 129.6 to 6.9. In the oxirane-ring open reaction, n-butanol is used as reagent and the final product has higher viscosity compared to epoxidized blend.