Synthesis of plant oil derivatived polyols via ADMET polymerization

The utilization of renewable feedstocks is an important issue for a sustainable development due to the depletion of our fossil resources. As important as the feedstocks is the efficiency of the chemical processes in order to avoid or minimize the impact in the environment. For this purpose the development and optimization of the catalytic systems is needed.1,2
Plant oils are one of the most important renewable resources for the chemical industry due to the available amount, its quality and the versatility of their transformations. Moreover, their inherent double-bond functionality offers the possibility of several efficient catalytic transformations, as for instance olefin metathesis.3
Within this contribution we report the synthesis of plant oil derived polyols via metathesis reactions. First, different monomers have been synthesized from undecenoic acid and glycerol derivatives. In a second step, ADMET polymerization has been applied to obtain polyols with different architecture, functionalitiy and molecular weights. These polyols will be tested in the synthesis of polyurethanes.

1 M. A. R. Meier, J.O. Metzger and U.S. Schubert, Chem. Soc. Rev., 2007, 36, 1788–1802
2 F. S. Günera, Y. Yagci, A.T. Erciyes, Prog. Polym. Sci. 2006, 31, 633–670
3 M. A. R. Meier, Macromol. Chem. Phys. 2009, 210, 1073-1079