Polymerisable di- and triesters from Tall Oil Fatty Acids and related compounds

Tall Oil Fatty Acids, a low value side product from the paper industry containing mainly oleic and linoleic acids, are used for producing the polyester precursor, dimethyl 1,19-nonadecanedioate by methoxycarbonylation in the presence of [Pd-2(dba)(3)],1,2-bis(ditertiarybutylphosphinomethyl)benzene and methanesulfonic acid in methanol. The methoxycarbonylation of methyl linoleate has been used to identify other products formed and approaches to their minimisation have been developed. It has also been used for the production of trimethyl heptadecanetricarboxylates. Finally, conjugated unsaturated esters of different chain length (up to 16 C atoms), some of them available from plant oils, are subjected to methoxycarbonylation to give alpha,omega-diesters.