results desired for a particular application the reaction may be run at pressures of from 0 to 1000 psig following the oligomerization reaction the unsaturated oligomers may be hydrogenated to improve their thermal stability and to guard against oxidative degradation during their use as lubricants the hydrogenation reaction for 1 tetradecene oligomers may be represented as follows str3 where n represents moles of monomer used to form the oligomer hydrogenation processes known to those skilled in the art may be used to hydrogenate the oligomers a number of metal catalysts are suitable for promoting the hydrogenation reaction including nickel platinum palladium copper and raney nickel these metals may be supported on a variety of porous materials such as kieselguhr alumina or charcoal or they may be formulated into a bulk metal catalyst a particularly preferred catalyst for this hydrogenation is a nickel copper chromia catalyst described in u s pat no 3 152 998 incorporated by reference herein other u s patents disclosing known hydrogenation procedures include u s pat nos 4 045 508 4 013 736 3 997 622 and 3 997 621 unreacted monomer may be removed either prior to or after the hydrogenation step optionally unreacted monomer may be stripped from the oligomers prior to hydrogenation and recycled to the catalyst bed for oligomerization the removal or recycle of unreacted monomer or if after hydrogenation the removal of non oligomerized alkane should be conducted under mild conditions using vacuum distillation procedures known to those skilled in the art distillation at temperatures exceeding 250 u00b0 c may cause the.