Waste Cooking Oil Utilisation as Bio-plasticiser through Epoxidation using Inorganic Acids as Homogeneous Catalysts

Abstract

This paper exposed the preparation of epoxidised waste cooking oil with sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and hydrochloric acid in order to utilise waste cooking oil economically efficient due to highly unsaturated triglycerides. These triglycerides act as potential raw material due to double bond content. The double bond content can be converted as bio-plasticiser. The paper aimed to investigate optimum conversion with different inorganic acids based on oxirane conversion and iodine value at different time. Epoxidation reaction was carried out in the conventional acetic acid-hydrogen peroxide process. The result showed that sulfuric acid can obtain higher conversion than that of other acid catalysts. It resulted with 20 % of oxirane conversion for 5 h.