WOODRIDGE, Ill. — Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc., a producer of high-performance renewable specialty chemicals and XiMo AG, a company focused on the development and application of proprietary metathesis catalysts, announced April 10 significant progress in the development of new technology for metathesizing natural oils and derivatives using Molybdenum-based catalysts.

Elevance and XiMo began working together in January 2011 on Molybdenum-catalyzed metathesis of natural oil esters. Under the collaboration XiMo and Elevance researchers tested more than 40 catalysts using several natural oil feedstocks under various conditions to evaluate their efficiency.

They have carried out successful demonstrations that make the Molybdenum-catalyzed metathesis of natural oil esters commercially competitive.