highly efficient so3h-carbon catalysed solvent-free synthetic protocol for wax esters via esterification of long chain fatty acids and alcohols

Solvent-free synthesis of saturated and monounsaturated wax esters (wes), 3a-j with carbon chain ranging from c26 to c38 was successfully demonstrated through esterification of long chain fatty acids (lcfas), 1a-g (c10:0, c12:0, c16:0, c18:0, c18:1, c18:1,12-oh, c22:0, and c22:1 acids) with long chain fatty alcohols (lcfalc), 2a-d (cetyl (c16), stearyl (c18), behenyl (c22) and erucyl (c22:1) alcohols) by so3h-carbon catalyst derived from glycerol. the optimized reaction conditions for the efficient synthesis of wes with excellent conversion and selectivity recorded in solvent free system are: 20 wt.% of so3h-carbon catalyst, reaction time of 6-10 h, temperature of 90 °c and substrate (lcfa:lcfalc) molar ratio of 1:1. all the synthesized wes were purified by silica gel column chromatography and characterized by ftir, 1h-nmr, and gc-ms spectral studies. in addition, this methodology involves simple workup protocol, without use of dean stark or dehydrating agents compared to the reported homogeneous/heterogeneous catalysed methods. furthermore, the resulting synthetic wes can play a potential alternates for the commercial products extracted from natural sources of lesser availability, thus making this so3h-carbon catalysed route very promising for further potential industrial implementation.