Ring‐Opening of Epoxidized Waste Cooking Oil by Hydroxylation Process: Optimization and Kinetic Modelling

Abstract Numerous academics worldwide are interested in utilizing waste as a resource to produce an epoxide. Epoxidation/ring‐opening of oxirane is a common method for producing polyols from vegetable oil. This study examined the effect of the catalyst type and loading on the ring opening of epoxide groups by utilizing performic acid generated in situ. The outcomes demonstrated that the zeolite catalyst at 0.2 g loading produced the highest conversion of oxirane (RCO%). The FTIR data showed that the epoxy ring group‘s location caused the hydroxyl group‘s (O−H) to be observed at 3100–3600 cm −1 in the placement of the epoxy ring group (C−O−C) at 1210–1250 cm −1 . Finally, optimization and kinetic modeling using artificial neural networks, abbreviated as Neural Network, is a model of the human brain that is abstracted, simulated, and trained to obtain the value of R closest to 1.