The use of a microwave oven in the chemical transformation of long chain fatty acid esters.

The use of a microwave oven as an energy source allowed transformation of fatty acid derivatives to be complete in a few minutes. Hydrolysis of triglycerides, esterification of free fatty acids, epoxidation of unsaturated fatty acid esters, cyclization of dioxostearates and oxounsaturated fatty acid esters into furanoid derivatives, conversion of epoxystearate to oxostearate derivatives, and substitution of a tosyl group by an azide all took about five min to complete and were in very high yields. The most sluggish reaction encountered was the acid catalyzed hydrolysis (ring opening) reaction of a furanoid ester to the corresponding 1,4-dioxo derivative, which required three 10-min periods of heating. The use of microwaves not only decreased the reaction time considerably but also allowed smaller volumes of solvent and lower quantities of reagents to be used as compared with the conventional methodologies reported.