Kinetics of tungsten‐catalyzed sunflower oil epoxidation studied by 1H NMR

Sunflower oil (SO) is a renewable resource that can be epoxidized, and the epoxidized SO has potential uses as an environmentally friendly and reactive material in polymeric formulations, especially for polyvinyl chloride. SO was epoxidized with peracetic acid, which was either preformed or prepared in situ. In order to optimize the formation of oxirane rings, the epoxidation and the extent of the side reactions were studied at different temperatures. The peracetic acid was obtained by acidic catalysis in the presence of a cation‐exchange resin. The optimum conversions were obtained within a 4‐h reaction period at 55 °C by the in situ epoxidation technique. The epoxidation was also carried out with hydrogen peroxide in the presence of peroxotungstic acid complexed with lipophilic phosphorus‐based ligands. 1H NMR was used to define the new indices Δ and Ω, which are the mean numbers of C=C double bonds and oxirane rings per fatty acid chain, respectively. This allowed monitoring of the reaction and quantification of the results. Peroxotungstic catalysts appeared less performing than peracids in the epoxidation of SO, but were found very efficient for the epoxidation of the SO methyl esters.