approach undecylenic alcohol is hydroformylated and the resulting aldehyde or aldehyde mixture is hydrogenated to give a diol the diol is then dehydrated to give 11 dodecen 1 ol as the major product in other aspects the monounsaturated alcohol or alcohol precursor e g a fatty acid or ester is generated using a microorganism or bioengineered microorganism such as an algae bacterium or yeast based microbe reduction of monounsaturated ester or acid precursors to produce the c 10 c 12 monounsaturated alcohols is performed using well known catalysts and procedures the reducing agent is typically either a hydride reducing agent sodium borohydride lithium aluminum hydride or the like or molecular hydrogen in combination with a metal catalyst frequently copper and or zinc in combination with chromium see e g u s pat nos 2 865 968 3 193 586 4 804 790 5 124 491 5 672 781 6 683 224 7 169 959 and 7 208 643 the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference the skilled person will appreciate that the reduction process particularly when transition metal catalysts are used to convert precursors to alcohols can induce some degree of isomerization or migration of the carbon carbon double bond from its original position moreover because hydrogenation catalysts are not always completely selective a proportion of the carbon carbon double bonds might be hydrogenated during the ester or acid reduction resulting in a mixed product that may have saturated c 10 c 12 fatty alcohols in addition to the desired unsaturated c 10 c 12 fatty alcohols the skilled person can control the degree of unsaturation to any desired amount the skilled person will of course recognize other desirable ways to arrive at the.