Shaojun Li, L. Hojabri, S. Narine
Jul 18, 2012
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Influential Citations
16
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Journal
Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society
Abstract
Triolein was used as a model material to investigate the effect of concentration on self metathesis of vegetable oils. The metathesis reaction using Grubbs' second generation catalyst (used at a level of 2.5 mol % of triolein) was carried out at 38 °C using dichloromethane as the solvent. The products from three reaction concentrations were investigated: neat, 10 and 20 mmol/L. The products from the reactions were separated by column chromatography and the fractions were characterized by 1H-NMR, 13C-NMR, MS and FTIR. Mono-cyclic and multi-cyclic triacylglycerol-based compounds and different level aliphatic triacylglycerol-like oligomers were produced, but the compositions of the products were found to be significantly controlled by the reaction concentrations. Cyclic compounds were favorably produced at lower reaction concentrations, whereas, linear oligomers were favorably produced at higher reaction concentrations. Cyclic compounds were formed mainly from adjacent fatty acid chains on the glycerol backbone. In the neat reactions, only linear oligomers were produced. The trans/cis ratios increased as concentration was increased.