As the oil crisis and environment concerning deepen,the uses of renewable resources have attracted considerable attention.Polyol intended for synthesis of polyurethane polymers was prepared by a novel direct hydroxylation of soybean oil,alternative to petroleumbased process.The transformation can afford soybean oil polyol in excellent yield with a hydroxyl number up to 467.7 mg KOH/g in the presence of OsO 4 as catalyst and NMO as oxidant.The major advantages of this approach are:two hydroxyl groups can be readily added to one double bond,replacing conventional two-step methods by an epoxidation step and then a ring opening step;a wide range of hydroxyl numbers can be obtained via varying catalyst loadings;the reaction can be performed at room temperature.The chemical structure of the polyol prepared was further characterized by chemical methods(hydroxyl number and iodine number) and spectra(1 H NMR and FTIR spectroscopy),which confirmed the cleavage of the double bonds and the produce of hydroxyl groups.
