Epoxidized vegetable oil have creating much attention in recent years, especially in polymer industry as they are sustainable, renewable and biodegradable materials replacing petrochemical-based materials in some applications. In this study the Epoxidation of Soybean oil was carried out by using microwave irradiation and comparison was made with conventional heating. Effects of various reaction parameters such as power, mole ratio, catalyst, reaction temperature and time were investigated. The epoxidation of soybean oil using microwave rector was observed in terms of substantial reduction in the reaction time for similar levels of conversion by conventional heating. It was found that the relative percentage conversion to oxirane using the conventional method was about 85.5% in 8 h while using microwave rector, almost 83% conversion was obtained in 60 min. Also the effects of two different catalysts on epoxidation conversion were studied. It was found that, the conversion up to 97% was obtained by using Ion exchange resin as a catalyst by conventional method. FTIR analysis was used to identify the relative extent of epoxidation of the samples during the epoxidation reaction. The present work has clearly illustrated the microwave reactors for epoxidation reaction opening a new opportunity for commercial exploitation.
