Chemical modification of canola oil for the production of useful commercial chemicals: A value addition to canola industry

加拿大是世界上最大的菜籽油出口国。2004-2005年，加拿大西部菜籽油总产量为760万吨，远高于650万吨的十年平均产量。据加拿大统计局估计，萨斯喀彻温省约占加拿大西部油菜籽产量的38%。由于菜籽油产量过剩，加拿大菜籽油委员会已指定10万吨菜籽油用于工业用途。除了生物柴油，到目前为止还没有油菜籽的重大工业应用。此外，由菜籽油生产的生物柴油商业化的主要障碍是其高昂的加工和原材料成本。化学改性，即菜籽油的环氧化、开环和酯化，产生了具有重要商业价值的化学品，这些化学品可在各种领域用作含卤素聚合物的增塑剂和稳定剂、润滑剂、塑料和氨基甲酸酯泡沫塑料的组分，以及一般作为大量商品的中间体。目前的研究方案主要集中在开发一种基于多相介孔钛(Ti)沸石催化剂的绿色环保工艺，用于菜籽油的环氧化反应和以环氧化菜籽油为原料制备可生物降解润滑油基础油的MCM-41和SB A-15催化剂。此外，在本工作中，这些多相催化剂可以用于所有相关的反应，即环氧化、开环和酯化。拟议的催化剂和工艺开发工作将侧重于一种新的工艺技术，用于从菜籽油中生产环保的消费型菜籽油产品。这肯定会使菜籽油行业受益，因为拟议的工艺将是菜籽油的一个很好的出口。如果成功，拟议的工艺将应用于其他植物油，如大豆、菜籽等。

Canada is world's largest canola oil exporting country. The total production of canola oil in western Canada was 7.6 million tones in 2004-2005, which was well above the ten year average of 6.5 million tones. According to the statistics Canada estimates, Saskatchewan accounts for approximately 38 % of Western Canadian canola production. The Canola Council of Canada has earmarked 100,000 tones of canola oil for industrial applications due to the surplus quantity of canola oil produced. Except for biodiesel, there is as such no major industrial application of canola so far. Also, the major barrier in commercialization of the biodiesel produced from canola oil is its high processing and raw material cost. Chemical modification namely epoxidation, ring-opening and esterification of canola oil produce chemicals of commercial importance that car be used in various domains as plasticizers and stabilizers in halogen-containing polymers, as lubricant, as components in plastics and in urethane foams and, in general, as intermediates for a large number of commodities. The current research proposal focuses on the development of a green and environmentally friendly process based on heterogeneous mesoporous titanium (Ti) containing zeolite catalysts such as MCM-41 and SB A-15 catalysts for the epoxidation of canola oil and preparation of biodegradable lubricant base stock from epoxidized canola oil. Also, in the present work these heterogeneous catalysts can be used for all the related reactions, i.e. epoxidation, ring opening and esterification. The proposed catalysts and process development work will focus on a new process technology for the production of eco-friendly consumer based canola products from canola oil. This will surely benefit the canola oil industry as the proposed process would be a very good outlet for canola. If successful, the proposed process will be applied to other vegetable oils such as soya, rapeseed etc.