Abstract

Substitution of fossil feedstock by vegetable oils is growing due to environmental constraints and oil depletion. Among the different valorization routes for vegetable oils, epoxidation of their unsaturation is widely used. The epoxidation is an exothermic reaction which could lead to a thermal runaway. There are different routes for the vegetable oil epoxidation: Prileschajew by performic and peracetic acid, which are the most used. Another promising alternative is the direct epoxidation by hydrogen peroxide by alumina. The goal of this manuscript is to rank the thermal risk of these three epoxidation routes by determining the safety parameter time to maximum rate under adiabatic condition. The Advanced Reactive System Screening Tool was used to conduct these experiments. It was found that the direct epoxidation is safer than the two other routes.