Metathesis of 9, 12-Octadecenoic Acid Methyl Ester: A Potential Source for Industrially Important Platform Chemicals

With the increase in environmental concern the demand for renewable sources and modern, greener synthetic routes is growing day by day. A number of self and cross-metathesis reactions were carried out across the 9-octadecenoic acid, and different vegetable oils, to develop a range of organic intermediates useful for lubricants, plasticizers, cosmetics, and grease applications. However, there is no systematic data available on the metathesis of fatty acids with more than one double bond. In this context, the present study was focused on the use of olefin metathesis for the preparation of industrial platform chemicals from 9, 12-octadecenoic acid methyl ester employing Grubbs second generation catalyst, 0.03 m mol concentration at 40-45 C for 36 h.6-pentadecene (5 %), and cyclic hydrocarbon cyclodecacyclododecene (19 %) were observed in major amounts. Mono esters namely cyclopropaneoctanoic acid methyl ester (12 %) and pentadecenoic acid methyl ester (11 %) were also observed, which may have potential as synthetic organic intermediates.