Epoxidation of Soybean Oil and Canola oil

The vegetable oil-based epoxy materials are sustainable، renewable and biodegradable materials replacing petrochemical-based epoxy materials in some applications. Soybean oil and canola oil have high contents of unsaturated fatty acids which can be converted to epoxy fatty acids. Soybean oil containing 24. 48% oleic acid، 7. 87% Linolenic، 3. 77% Stearic، 11. 4% Palmitic and 47. 06% linoleic acid and canola oil containing 64. 27% oleic acid، 8. 8% Linolenic، 1. 27% Stearic، 3. 9% Palmitic and 17. 09% linoleic acid was epoxidised with hydrogen peroxide as oxygen donor،carrier in presence of catalytic amount of an formic acid. The highest epoxy content of epoxidiazed Soybean oil (ESO) produced had 6. 11% (wt) and The highest epoxy content of epoxidiazed canola oil ECO produced was 4. 75% (wt). A possibly undesirable side reaction was reaction of the epoxy ring opening resulting in hydroxyl functional groups observed by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). The result showed that the ESO was more than ECO that can related to more unsatraeted in soybean oil. This project hopes to help Iran to start producing vegetable oil-based epoxy ourselves.