Preparation of conjugated soybean oil and other natural oils and fatty acids by homogeneous transition metal catalysis

The use of as little as 0.1 mol% [RhCl(C8H14)2]2, 0.25 mol% PtCl2(PPh3)2, or 0.5 mol% RuHCl(CO)(PPh3)3, where Ph = phenyl, catalyzes the isomerization of soybean oil to conjugated soybean oil under mild reaction conditions and in high yields. No hydrogenation products are detected with any of these catalysts. Preliminary physical tests have shown that the conjugated soybean oil has exceptional drying properties and the resulting coatings exhibit good solvent resistance. The [RhCl(C8H14)2]2 catalyst provides similarly high yields of other conjugated vegetable oils, conjugated linoleic acid, and conjugated ethyl linoleate. Other rhodium catalysts, such as RhCl(PPh3)3, have also been found to be effective for the conjugation of ethyl linoleate.