Claims
- 1. A process for making a synthetic oil, said process comprising (a) isomerizing at least a portion of a vinylidene olefin feed to form an intermediate which contains at least 50 wt. percent tri-substituted olefin and (b) reacting said intermediate and a vinyl olefin in the presence of a catalyst to form a synthetic oil which comprises at least about 50 wt. percent of a co-dimer having a carbon number which is the sum of the carbon numbers of the vinylidene olefin and the vinyl olefin.
- 2. The process of claim 1 wherein said vinylidene olefin is a dimer of a vinyl olefin monomer containing about 4 to 30 carbon atoms and said vinyl olefin contains about 4 to 30 carbon atoms.
- 3. The process of claim 2 wherein said vinylidene olefin is a dimer of a vinyl olefin monomer containing about 6 to 20 carbon atoms and said vinyl olefin contains about 6 to 24 carbon atoms.
- 4. The process of claim 2 wherein said synthetic oil is at least about 70 wt. percent reaction product of said intermediate and said vinyl olefin.
- 5. The process of claim 2 wherein said catalyst is a BF.sub.3 -promoter catalyst.
- 6. The process of claim 5 wherein the amount of promoter is from about 0.001 to 1.0 wt. percent promoter, based on the total weight of olefin reactants.
- 7. The process of claim 6 wherein the promoter is an alcohol.
- 8. The process of claim 7 wherein the alcohol is an aliphatic alcohol which contains from about 1-8 carbon atoms.
- 9. The process of claim 6 wherein the molar ratio of BF.sub.3 is greater than about 1:1.
- 10. The process of claim 6 wherein the amount of promoter is from about 0.025 to about 0.5 wt. percent based on the total weight of olefin reactants.
- 11. The process of claim 2 wherein the intermediate contains at least about 95 wt. percent tri-substituted olefin and the molar ratio of tri-substituted olefin to vinyl olefin is about 1:1 such that said synthetic oil is essentially a co-dimer having a single carbon number which is the sum of the carbon numbers of the vinylidene olefin and the vinyl olefin.
- 12. The process of claim 1 wherein a vinylidene olefin isomerization catalyst is present in step (a).
- 13. The process of claim 12 wherein said isomerization catalyst is Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 /SiO.sub.2.
- 14. The process of claim 12 wherein said isomerization catalyst is used to catalyze the step (b) reaction.
- 15. The process of claim 14 wherein said process is carried out in a fixed bed reactor packed with Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 /SiO.sub.2 catalyst.
- 16. The process of claim 1 wherein said synthetic oil has a kinetic viscosity of from about 1 to 100 cSt at 100.degree. C.
- 17. The process of claim 16 wherein said synthetic oil has a kinetic viscosity of from about 2 to 5 cSt at 100.degree. C.
- 18. The process of claim 2 wherein the mole ratio of trisubstituted olefin to vinyl olefin is from about 20:1 to 1:20.
Parent Case Info
This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 07/772,655, filed Oct. 7, 1991, abandoned.
US Referenced Citations (9)
Foreign Referenced Citations (1)
Number |
Date |
Country |
377306 |
Jul 1990 |
EPX |
Continuations (1)
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Number |
Date |
Country |
Parent |
772655 |
Oct 1991 |
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