Synthesis and characterization of oleamide slip agent

The present paper explores a new economical method for the synthesis of oleamide form the oleic acid and urea in the presence of catalyst at atmospheric pressure. Oleamide is mainly synthesized by ammonolysis of fatty acid or esters with ammonia gas at high pressure. Yet, using the urea instead of ammonia gas provides an economical reaction at atmospheric pressure. The structure of synthesized oleamide was characterized by FTIR analysis. The effect of oleic acid / urea molar ratio, time and temperature of reaction as well as amount of catalyst on the acid values or conversion of reaction was studied. The optimum condition for the synthesis of oleamide from oleic acid and urea was obtained to be oleic acid / urea molar ratio of 1:4, temperature of 200 ℃ and time reaction of 180 min with 1 wt% catalyst concentration. At this condition the acid value of 56 was achieved. Also, the reaction mechanism and kinetic were investigated in which ammonolysis followed pseudo-first order kinetics.