ABSTRACT
The effect of sulfuric acid as a catalyst on the rate of oxirane ring opening in epoxidized soybean oil in presence of glacial acetic acid has been studied and compared with p-toluene sulforic acid. Duolite C 26 and Lewatit S 100 cation resin catalysts. It has been proved that sulfuric acid has the strongest catalytic effect on the cleavage reaction. The matrix structure of the resin catalyst was claimed to be one of the most important rate-controlling variables. The use of Duolite; a macroporous resin, at a level of 10% of the weight of the aqueous phase resulted in an increase of the reaction rate constant by 70% compared to 35% using 10% Lewatit, a gel type resin. This results suggests that the cleavage reaction catalyzed by resin catalysts is determined by the degree of cross linking and porosity rather than the number of active sites