A Highly Efficient Olefin Metathesis Process for the Synthesis of Terminal Alkenes from Fatty Acid Esters

Recently, considerable attention has been focused on the use of olefin metathesis to convert oleochemicals into value-added products such as the bifunctional molecule methyl 9-decenoate, but the implementation of this process has been hampered by low ethenolysis efficiencies. We report herein the use of alpha olefins as ethylene surrogates in cross metathesis reactions with methyl oleate and soybean oil fatty acid methyl esters (soy FAME) resulting in considerable increases in catalyst efficiencies in the production of this promising chemical product. Additional gains in efficiency were realized by using a peroxide-scavenging feedstock pretreatment.