RESEARCH ON CHEMICAL INTERMEDIATES, no.1, pp.215-230, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
Practical and efficient method has been developed for the preparation of novel sulfur-containing esters from triglycerides as potential important industrial and biomaterials. The fact that these unusual compounds are not found in natural sources encourages both academic and industrial communities for their preparation with suitable chemical or enzymatic processes. In general, enzymatic processes requiring more laborious synthesis and product isolation stages. On the other hand, known chemical methods for the preparation of normal wax esters have several drawbacks cited in the present work. Therefore, the chemical method developed in the present study is environmentally benign and suitable for both small- and large-scale syntheses of normal and unusual wax esters. For this purpose, triglycerides were taken to the transesterification reaction in a solvent-free medium with synthetic thia-long-chain alcohols at a ratio of (1:3). In order to catalyze the reaction, newly synthesized bis-imidazole-based metal-free acidic ionic liquid was used and the thia-mono esters were obtained in a fairly short period of time (6 h) with good to excellent yields. The catalyst reuse and large-scale synthesis studies were also carried out. Graphic abstract