Abstract
Epoxidized methyl esters (EMO) with their high oxirane ring reactivity,
acts as a raw material in the synthesis of various industrial chemicals
including polymers, stabilizers, plasticizers, glycols, polyols,
carbonyl compounds, biolubricants etc. EMO has been generally quantified
by the gas chromatography (GC) and high performance liquid
chromatography (HPLC) techniques. Taking into the account of the
limitations of these techniques, two qHNMR based equations have been
proposed for the quantification of EMO in the mixture of EMO and methyl
esters (MO). The validity of the proposed method was determined using
standard mixtures of MO and EMO having different molar concentrations.
The developed equations have been applied on the samples of EMO prepared
from oleic acid in two step process viz., esterification followed by
epoxidation. The qHNMR based EMO quantification showed acceptable
agreement with the results obtained from HPLC analysis.