Speciality Chemicals Magazine SEP / OCT 2026 | Page 79

BIOBASED CHEMICALS

kernel and coconut oil. In oil palm, the relevant C 8 and C 10 fractions are concentrated mainly in the kernel, while the significantly larger oil stream from the fruit pulp offers little of value for producing these molecules.

In coconut oil, too, C 10 represents only a minor fraction of the natural fatty acid profile. Therefore, additional volumes of C 10 cannot be scaled independently through tropical oilseeds, but remain tied to the overall feedstock and product balance of the respective crop.

Petrochemical C 10 routes face a different limitation. These derivatives are commonly supplied as branched isomers and making purified linear

C 10 derivatives requires complex and costly processing. In practice, therefore, lower-cost isomer mixtures are typically used, although their structural heterogeneity can affect, among other things, melting behaviour, reactivity and selectivity in subsequent syntheses.

At the same time, the chemical industry is under increasing pressure to move away from fossil carbon sources as a feedstock. Since carbon is indispensable to organic synthesis, the transition must focus on defossilisation. The development of renewable carbon sources that are both scalable and reliably available is therefore essential.

For users, this creates a complex set of competing requirements. They additional, industrially scalable sources of C 10 molecules that can provide sufficient volumes to consistent specifications, support the transition to renewable feedstocks and remain commercially viable.

Industrialising metathesis

One solution lies in the use of olefin metathesis for industrial applications. This process can make organic synthesis more selective and resourceefficient, reduce its environmental impact and harness the structural diversity of organic molecules in a more targeted manner.

The Verbio Group is now using the Nobel Prize-winning defined catalyst systems developed by Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock on an industrial scale. Rapeseed methyl ester( RME) from Verbio’ s own European production is converted into renewable, well-defined medium-chain carbon molecules at new ethenolysis plant in Bitterfeld, Germany( pictured). The process uses Schrock-type catalysts from XiMo, a Verbio subsidiary, to achieve high selectivity and efficiency. Unlike tropical oil crops, this route does not restrict C 10 availability to a fixed proportion of the feedstock’ s natural composition. Ethenolysis instead enables abundant RME to be converted selectively into the desired

C 10 molecules. In Europe alone about six million tonnes / year of RME are produced, mainly for the energy sector.

The dedicated conversion of RME into C 10 molecules provides an additional biobased access to this class of compounds and can thereby contribute to the defossilisation of the chemical industry. The resulting C 10 molecules also have a competitively low product carbon footprint, owing to the biogenic feedstock and an energyintegrated process design.

Delivering to specification

For industrial users, molecule must be available at scale, to consistent specifications and with reproducible quality. Whilst broader molecular distributions are not inherently disadvantageous and may, in certain formulations, provide functional benefits, a high degree of molecular definition is often required in targeted synthesis.

The better a molecule is defined, the more precisely the subsequent reactions and resulting product properties can be controlled. Here, parameters such as melting point, flash point, colour number, water content and molar mass are key determinants of a substance’ s suitability for formulations and subsequent synthesis steps.

Verbio Life Chemicals can supply well-defined C 10 fatty acid derivatives with a purity of over 99 %. This is achieved through the combination of RME as the feedstock, additional purification steps and XiMo catalysts. These enable a high feedstock conversion while minimising isomerisation, yielding clearly defined molecular structures.

Figure 1 – Production of 1-decene from RME

FeedstocK Verbio biorefinery biomass production

Usage industries

Biodiesel plant

Ethenolysis plant

Home and industrial care

Flavours and fragrances

Lubricants

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