Analysis of epoxidized soybean oil by gas chromatography

A fast and cost-effective procedure to quantitate epoxidized soybean oil by means of an external standard method is reported. This procedure is applicable to commercial epoxidized oils, polymer additive packages and polymers—polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—containing epoxidized oils. The epoxidized soybean oil is converted into fatty acid methyl esters with tetramethylammonium hydroxide, and analyzed by capillary gas chromatography with flame-ionization detection. In PVC samples, the epoxidized soybean oil was extracted with toluene and followed by derivatization prior to analysis. The methyl esters of monoepoxyoctadecanoic, diepoxyoctadecanoic and triepoxyoctadecanoic acid were separated with a short capillary column.