Triacylglycerol self-metathesis over highly chemoselective methyltrioxorhenium supported on ZnCl2-promoted mesoporous alumina

• Highly active 3%MTO/ZnCl2–Al2O3-meso catalyst for triglyceride self-metathesis.
• Highly chemoselective catalyst resulting only in the desired metathesis products.
• Intra and intermolecular reactions were observed in triolein self-metathesis.
• Reaction products effectively separated and identified by mass spectrometry and NMR.

Since triolein is the main constituent of most oils such as olive and high oleic sunflower oils, self-metathesis of this triacylglycerol at mild reaction conditions was investigated via a heterogeneous approach, in the presence of ZnCl2-modified mesoporous alumina supported methyltrioxorhenium (MTO) as a catalyst. Both intra and intermolecular metathesis reactions were observed. While, 9-octadecene, dimers and trimers of the triacylglycerol were isolated, intermolecular cyclization metathesis products were also obtained. The MTO-based catalyst was found to be highly chemoselective affording only desired metathesis product formation. In contrast, more than 50% of triolein was converted to undesired solid product in the presence of the homogeneous Grubbs 2nd generation catalyst. Triolein metathesis products were effectively separated by chromatographic techniques and identified using mass spectrometric and NMR analyses. The reported results show that 3%MTO/ZnCl2–Al2O3-meso is an efficient and selective heterogeneous catalyst for bulky functionalized olefins metathesis such as triacylglycerols and edible oils, avoiding the use of costly homogeneous catalysts, or the use other rhenium-based catalysts with toxic promoters such as R4Sn.

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