Temperature and Acetic Acid Concentration Optimation in the Epoxidation Reaction of Palm Oil Methyl Ester

Abstract

Vegetable oils are rich in content unsaturated fatty acid from the type of oleic acid, linoleic acid and linolenic acid that can be converted to epoxide groups. Epoxidized oil has many useful applications such as plastisizer to improve flexibility, elasticity and stability under the influence of heat and radiation. In this research, palm oil was converted first to become palm oil methyl ester (POME), followed by epoxidation reaction to produce epoxidized palm oil methyl ester (EPOME). Response surface method (RSM) was performed for optimization and to study the influence of reaction temperature and molar ratio POME/CH3COOH on the conversion reaction and oxirane value. An optimal reactional condition was shown by high oxirane content which was in the form of oxirane counts/number. Epoxidation reaction was run in the batch reactor using acetic acid as an oxygen carrier. Central Composite Design (CCD) with two independent variables and two response function was utilized to investigate the effect of input variables. The result shows that reaction conversion increased with the rise of reaction temperature and molar ratio of POME/CH3COOH before reaching the maximum point, and then it monotonously decreased. The optimal operating condition for epoxidation reaction was indicated by maximum oxirane value which could be reached by the reaction temperature of 56.3 oC and molar ratio POME/CH3COOH of 1:0.43 Key words: epoxidation, methyl ester, oxirane, palm oil