Epoxidation of Podocarpus Falcatus Oil by Sulphuric Acid Catalyst: Process Optimization and Physio-chemical Characterization

Abstract

Recently environmental awareness and reduction of world fossil fuel reserves have enforced the need to look for a replacement of mineral oils with environmentally friendly and nontoxic epoxy oil vegetable-based. The current study implies that Epoxidized podocarpus falcatus oil can be a substitute as a raw material for the production of a variety of chemicals and the replacement of petroleum products in composite matrices because of having high reactivity of oxirane ring. The podocarpus falcatus oil was obtained by using the solvent extraction method. In this present investigation, the extracted podocarpus falcatus oil was epoxidized using a performic acid generated in situ by the reaction of aqueous hydrogen peroxide and carboxylic acid in presence of strong Sulphuric acid. A maximum percentage of conversion of oil and selectivity of epoxidized oil were found to be at 63°C temperature, 1.4:1 molar ratio of hydrogen peroxide to ethylene unsaturation double bond of podocarpus falcatus oil, and 4 hours of time reaction. The effective synthesis of epoxidation reaction for confirmation on the investigation of epoxidized podocarpus falcatus oil was characterized by identifying the structure, functional group, and composition of podocarpus falcatus seed oil, in comparison to epoxidized podocarpus falcatus oil, using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy.