10.1246/bcsj.59.3941
Yasushi Irol, Masami INouE, and Saburo Enomoro, investigate the epoxidation of fatty acid esters using 30% aqueous hydrogen peroxide in the presence of a molybdenum oxide-tributyltin chloride on charcoal catalyst in 2-propanol at 50°C. The study demonstrates that various fatty acid esters, including ethyl erucate and ethyl oleate, achieve good yields of 77% and 76%, respectively, while ethyl elaidate, a trans-form, yields only 40%. The epoxidation process selectively maintains the double bond configuration and is more effective for cis-forms due to steric effects. The study also explores the epoxidation of vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil, olive oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, corn oil, and linseed oil, with oxirane oxygen contents ranging from 3.5% to 5.3%. The results indicate that the presence of specific fatty acids, like erucic acid in rapeseed oil, significantly influences the epoxidation yield. The study concludes that the use of 30% aqueous hydrogen peroxide is a practical and safer alternative to organic peroxy acids for epoxidation, and the catalyst can be easily separated by filtration.