Epoxidation of Soybean Oil by Continuous Micro-Flow System with Continuous Separation

Abstract

In the study, the epoxidation process of soybean oil by microflow system (MFS) was investigated. With formic acid as oxygen carrier and EDTA-2Na as stabilizer, the optimal result (epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) with an epoxy number (EN) of 7.3) was obtained in such conditions: temperature 75 °C, H2SO4 concentration 3%, EDTA-2Na dosage 3%, residence time 6.7 min, ratio of formic acid to hydrogen peroxide 1:1, and H2O2 to double bond molar ratio 8:1.