Kinetic study of epoxidation of Tung oil (Reutealis trisperma (Blanco) Airy Shaw) by peroxyacetic acid

The use of vegetable oils (VOs) to replace petroleum derivatives is very interesting. This is due to the advantages of VOs, which are relatively biodegradable and renewable. The VOs containing high unsaturated fatty acid, such as Tung oil, soybean oil, rubber oil are very potential materials for biopolymers, which can be reacted further into epoxy, polyols, and even polymers. The kinetic of epoxidation of Tung oil by peroxyacetic acid produced in-situ process was studied. In this study, the formation of peroxyacetic acid was considered as rate determining step, which controlled the overall reaction rate. The process was conducted in batch reaction at atmospheric pressure, constant mixing rate and constant ratio of raw material to acetic acid. The temperature was varied at 40, 50, 60, and 70°C. The reaction samples were taken at specific time during 2-4 hours of reaction. The result shows that the proposed simple kinetics model fits appropriately at lower reaction temperature, but does not agree at higher temperature (more than 60°C). The reaction rate constants is in the range of (3.307–9.634) × 10⁻⁶ L.mol⁻¹.s⁻¹, in which its collision factor and activation energy are 286,768 gram.mol⁻¹.min⁻¹ and 30,900 Joule/mol, respectively.