The lithium salt of 12-hydroxystearic acid is an important ingredient of high quality specialty greases. At present, this salt is derived entirely from hydrogenated castor oil. Because of the increased demand for castor oil fatty acids in the production of other derivatives, such as plasticizers, lubricants, surface coatings, etc., the preparation of supplementary materials from oils of domestic origin is highly desirable. Epoxystearic acids (1) can be readily prepared from oils of domestic origin and therefore, the possibility of reducing these acids to the corresponding monohydroxystearic acids was investigated.Reference to the literature revealed that the catalytic hydrogenation of epoxystearic acid has received very little attention and no information is available regarding the mechanism of this reduction. Pigulevskii and Rubashko (2) reported the hydrogenation of ethyl cis-9,lO-epoxystearate to the 10-hydroxystearate in alcohol solution using palladium-black catalyst. According to Ross, et al.(3) methyl cis-9,lO-epoxystearate can be hydrogenated with Raney nickel in ethanol neutral to phenolphthalein to yield a mixture of 9-and 10-hydroxystearates in which they found 85 % or more of the 10-isomer. Other workers have encountered considerable difficulty in the hydrogenation of long chain epoxy compounds. Thus, Newman, et al. (4) were unsuccessful in hydrogenating 1,2-epoxydecane in absolute ethanol with platinic oxide (Adams' catalyst) or with Raney nickel under ordinary conditions at room temperature, although they did succeed in reducing it to decanol with Raney nickel at a temperature of 150". In no case previously described does the hydrogenation of the oxirane group proceed with the same degree of ease as does the hydrogenation of the ethylenic linkage.In this laboratory repeated attempts to effect the hydrogenation of various samples of the methyl 9 , 10-epoxystearates in alkaline ethanolic solution using either electrolytic nickel or Raney nickel catalyst prepared by the method described in Organic Syntheses (5) were unsuccessful3. Attempts to hydrogenate the epoxy compounds with Raney nickel (5) in the absence of solvent under various conditions of temperature (25-200") and pressure (1-15 atmospheres) were also unsuccessful. Various solvents including acetic acid and petroleum ether also failed to promote the hydrogenation of these compounds when Raney nickel was used as the catalyst. However, it was found that 9'10-epoxystearates ' One of the laboratories of the Bureau of Agricultural and Industrial Chemistry, Agri-* Presented a t the Southwide Chemical Conference, Auburn, Alabama.a Ross and eo-workers employed a Raney nickel specially prepared a t a low temperature by the method described by Pavlic and Adkins (6), according to s private communication from J . Ross, Julv 31, 1051.
686cultural Research Administration, U. S. Department of Agriculture.