The chemistry of oleates and related compounds in the 2020s

The use of renewable resources as an alternative to fossil raw materials is one of the topical directions of modern science. Consistent efforts have been devoted to finding the most prospective feedstocks and developing efficient methods for their processing. Among them, plant oils represent a promising source for the fuel, chemical, polymer, pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. Unsaturated fatty acids (FAs) and their derivatives, particularly oleates and ricinoleates, are candidate starting materials for both organochemical modifications to obtain functional materials and catalytic transformations to α-olefins, unsaturated carboxylic acids and their derivatives, branched hydrocarbons and other valuable compounds required in the fine chemistry and polymer industry. In the 2020s, significant progress has been made in the field of oleochemistry, and in the present work, we attempt to provide the broadest overview of the chemistry of oleates and related compounds, i.e., derivatives of unsaturated FAs. Our review addresses the issues of raw material processing and purification as well as the catalytic and organochemical transformation of unsaturated FAs and FA esters with and without the cleavage of CC bonds. The most promising actual directions of research, their compliance with the principles of green chemistry and the prospects for further development are also discussed in this work.