In situ epoxidation of hybrid waste cooking oil and oleic acid via peracid mechanism

The increasing generation of waste cooking oil (WCO) poses significant environmental challenges, making its valorization essential for sustainable waste management. This research investigates the in situ peracid method for epoxidizing a hybrid mixture of oleic acid and waste cooking oil. A novel approach is proposed by utilizing hybrid raw materials in the presence of natural zeolite as a catalyst to enhance epoxidation efficiency. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis in Taguchi method showed that the optimum process parameters for production of epoxidized hybrid oleic acid and waste cooking oil to the response of relative conversion to oxirane (RCO) with determination of oxirane oxygen content (OOC) was maximum (50%) under following conditions: temperature of 50 °C, stirring at 100 rpm, and a molar ratio 1:1 with formic acid. After 100 iterations, the reaction rate constant based on optimized epoxidized hybrid oleic acid and waste cooking oil production was obtained as follows: k₁₁ = 13.45 mol⋅L^-1⋅min^-1, k₁₂ = 14.08 mol⋅L^-1⋅min^-1, k₂ = 0.023 mol⋅L^-1⋅min^-1, and k₃ = 0.025 mol⋅L^-1⋅min^-1.This discovery helps reduce waste, turns used cooking oil into a valuable commodity, and offers insight into reaction kinetics, a critical concept for industrial applications that is environmentally friendly.