Transformations of terpenes and terpenoids via carbon–carbon double bond metathesis

Abstract

Stimulated by the strong interest in replacing fossil raw materials by renewable feedstocks in chemical industry, alkene metathesis of unsaturated bio-sourced olefins has been recently investigated with the objective of producing high-value molecules using green and atom economic strategies. It is due time to review what has been achieved in this field using terpenes and terpenoids as olefin metathesis partners. These substrates, derived from the isoprene structure, present different types of carbon–carbon double bonds that can be involved in self metathesis, ring closing metathesis, cross metathesis including ethenolysis, and ring opening metathesis. The successful achievements and remaining bottlenecks in this field will be discussed.