In-situ epoxidation of palm kernel oil for chemical precursor: Catalysis and kinetic modelling

Abstract. The increasing desire for eco-friendly epoxides made from vegetable oils has ignited curiosity in the epoxidation process of palm oil. However, limited research has explored the palm kernel oil with utilizing phosphoric acid as a catalyst during epoxidation. This study aims to investigate the influence of phosphoric acid as a homogeneous catalyst in the epoxidation reaction and examine the kinetics of the process employing particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA). The in situ peracid mechanism, known for its cost-effectiveness and reduced environmental impact, was selected as the method for epoxide production. The experimental investigation involved epoxidizing palm kernel oil (PKO) to obtain epoxidized palm kernel oil (EPKO). Notably, a reaction time of 24 minutes resulted in a relative conversion of olefin (RCO%) reaching 51.4%. The results of this research enhance our comprehension of the phosphoric acid- catalyzed epoxidation of palm kernel oil and demonstrate the applicability of metaheuristic algorithms for kinetics modelling and optimization in this context. For the kinetics study, both GA and PSO methods were employed, and the sum of errors for both approaches was 0.28 for GA and 0.32 for PSO. These findings suggest that both GA and PSO methods can be effectively utilized for the purpose of kinetics study.