BEST OPERATING CONDITIONS FOR THE EPOXYDATION OF VEGETABLE OIL IN FED-BATCH REACTOR

Abstract The interest in epoxidation of vegetable oil is constantly growing in the chemical industry. Typical process is based on epoxidation of unsaturated bonds of oil by peroxyacids (R-CO3H) generated in situ, in the water phase, by using concentrated hydrogen peroxide and the corresponding organic acid in the presence of a mineral acid as catalyst. The overall epoxidation reaction is highly exothermic (ΔH =−230.3 kJ/mol of each double bond), hence operating conditions should be always addressed by safety considerations for the runaway reaction and thermal explosion. In this paper, best operating conditions in order to minimize these risks have been defined. However based on geometry-based and sensitivity-based criteria for the complex reaction network developed from known kinetic model as defined in previous work. Safety parameters have been also developed