Recent advances in vegetable oil based fine chemicals and polymers

Vegetable oil as a kind of renewable resource has been considered as promising raw material to replace petrochemical resources. This paper focuses on several highly reactive sites of triglycerides, including carbon–carbon double bonds, allyl groups, and ester groups. The vegetable oil-based platform monomers/polymers with different structures and functions are obtained via chemical modification such as epoxidation, ozone decomposition, hydroformylation, transesterification, and thiolene. Vegetable oil-based chemicals mainly include polyols, biodiesel fuels, lubricants, and plasticizers, and vegetable oil-based polymers mainly include inks, coatings, and polyurethane foams. This paper summarizes and analyzes the review of vegetable oil-based chemicals and polymers in various industries, and puts forward the prospect for their future applications.