Pre-Treatment of Used Cooking Oils and Further Epoxidation Using Amberlite IR-120 As Catalyst

Used cooking oils (UCOs), inevitable byproducts of food preparation in households, institutions, or industries, present disposal challenges as inedible materials. Predominantly composed of triglycerides, partial glycerides, and fatty acids, these oils retain residual triglycerides from virgin vegetable oils or fats with unsaturations that are active groups for further epoxidation. Oleochemical epoxides serve as essential components in epoxy resins and polyurethanes, offering an eco-friendly alternative to traditional first-generation epoxidized vegetable oils and mitigating UCOs mismanagement impacts. Despite the potential, exploitation of waste materials via heterogeneously catalyzed processes involves major challenges mainly related to deactivation of catalysts caused by the impurities in UCO. These impurities can adversely affect the conversion to oxirane ring, leading to lower yields and less efficient reactions. Studying the effects of these impurities on the epoxidation process is crucial to understand their impact and determine how they influence the overall kinetic performance and utility of UCOs in industrial applications. Then, this study aims to evaluate the pre-treatment process required to obtain a suitable UCO as raw material for further epoxidation using an ion exchange resin as catalyst (Amberlite IR-120) and to conduct a preliminary kinetic evaluation of epoxidation with in situ formed peracetic acid (i.e. Prileschajew reaction). Experimental procedures included the characterization and conditioning of UCO sourced from restaurants in Bogotá, Colombia, through filtration and neutralization. Subsequently, epoxidation tests were conducted to evaluate the effects of stirring speed and catalyst particle size to determine the adequate conditions for assessing the intrinsic kinetics of the reaction. Kinetic tests were carried out under recommended conditions and the conversion profile was analyzed to observe the performance of the resin in the presence of pre-treated UCO. The kinetic profiles were compared with those obtained using a refined oil feedstock of similar characteristics to advance in the understanding of the challenges of using second-generation raw materials for the production of oleochemical epoxides.