Refining of Plant Oils to Chemicals by Olefin Metathesis...

摘要

The need to develop chemical products from renewable resources is becoming a subject of intense interest. However, successful development of such materials will depend heavily on their cost and performance relative to traditionally derived products. Fatty acids pose an attractive class of starting materials for such an undertaking, since they already account for 35% of renewable feedstock used by the chemical industry. Their transformation to higher-value products has been well studied, with olefin metathesis being the most viable process methodology to effect the desired reactions. Herein, the authors present a mini-review which describes the key issues associated with commercial implementation of this technique.