Challenges Arising from Continuous‐Flow Olefin Metathesis

Abstract

The versatility of olefin metathesis is evident from its successful applications ranging from natural product synthesis to the valorization of renewable feedstocks. On the other side, flow chemistry has recently gained particular interest among the synthetic community, offering valuable alternatives to classic batch chemistry and paving the way to the development of new transformations. The application of continuous flow to olefin metathesis represents one of the most promising evolutions in the field at the interface of industrially relevant synthesis and reactor engineering, significantly improving some of the typical problems such as undesired self-reactions and ethylenemediated catalyst de-activation. This review aims to provide a small survey covering the major aspects of those techniques which we hope may be of interest for the chemical community, but also those interested in catalysis, continuous processing, enabling technologies and reactor design.

Biobased Polyethers via Acyclic Diene Metathesis Polymerization of α,ω-Diene Furanics

“…In all trials, no evidence of isomerization or ring-closing metathesis (RCM) was detected, even in the presence of M205, a well-known catalyst for RCM. 44 These results provide further confirmation of previously reported data, supporting that long-chain terminal olefins (i.e., hexene, decene) undergo preferentially polymerization over RCM. 36 The recovered polymers showed different aspects from light brown sticky oil to dark gray agglomerate, and this diversity was related to their thermal properties (vide infra).…”