Hydrogenation of unsaturated fatty esters with copper‐chromite catalyst: Kinetics, mechanism and isomerization

Abstract Hydrogenation of linolenate with copper chromite produced a large amount of conjugated diene and minor amounts of nonconjugatable dienes. The double bonds in conjugated dienes and monoenes were scrambled all along the chain. This product distribution can be explained if it is assumed that conjugation of the double bonds is followed by hydrogenation. In competitive hydrogenation, fatty esters with conjugated double bonds were reduced preferentially over fatty esters with methylene‐interrupted double bonds. Isomerization of conjugated double bonds (geometric and positional) occurred more rapidly than reduction. Reduction of conjugated double bonds in the presence of deuterium resulted in a majority of the products containing no deuterium. Most of the added deuterium was incorporated into the unreacted material. Mechanisms are proposed to account for the products formed during the hydrogenation of linolenate, linoleate and their isomers.