High-purity alicyclic epoxy compound, process for production of the same, curable epoxy resin composition, cured product thereof, and application thereof

A process for the production of a high-purity alicyclic epoxy compound,

• in which an alicyclic olefin compound represented by the following general formula (II)
• is epoxidized with an aliphatic percarboxylic acid having substantially no water followed by the removal of a solvent to produce an alicyclic epoxy compound represented by the general formula (I)
• (in the formulas (I) and (II), X is a divalent group selected from the group consisting of an oxygen atom, a sulfur atom, —SO—, —SO2—, —CH2—, —C(CH3)2—, —CBr2—, —C(CBr3)2—, and —C(CF3)2—;
• R1 to R18 each may be identical or different from each other and are a hydrogen atom, a halogen atom, a hydrocarbon group that may contain an oxygen atom or halogen atom, or an alkoxy group that may have a substituent),
• that is in turn subjected to purification by distillation to thereby the high-purity alicyclic epoxy compound wherein the concentration of high-molecular-weight components having an elution time shorter than that of the alicyclic epoxy compound in detection by GPC analysis is 5.5% or less with respect to the sum total of all of detected peak areas in terms of the peak area ratio per elution time.