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，加拿大西部的菜籽油总产量为760万吨，远高于650万吨的十年平均水平。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%。加拿大芥花理事会已指定10万吨芥花油用于工业应用，因为芥花油产量过剩。除生物柴油外，迄今为止油菜籽还没有大的工业应用。此外，由芥花油生产的生物柴油商业化的主要障碍是其高加工和原材料成本。芥花油的化学改性，即环氧化、开环和酯化产生具有商业重要性的化学品，其可在各种领域中用作含卤素聚合物中的增塑剂和稳定剂、润滑剂、塑料和聚氨酯泡沫中的组分，以及通常用作大量商品的中间体。目前的研究建议集中在开发一种绿色和环境友好的工艺，该工艺基于非均相介孔含钛（Ti）沸石催化剂，如MCM-41和SB A-15催化剂，用于菜籽油的环氧化和由环氧化菜籽油制备可生物降解的润滑油基础油。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，用于从菜籽油生产环保型消费者菜籽油产品。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路。如果成功的话，所提出的工艺将应用于其他植物油，如大豆，油菜籽等。

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.