A Simple, Efficient, Green, Cost Effective and Chemoselective Process for the Esterification of Carboxylic Acids

Carboxylic acids have been esterified under mild and solvent-free conditions in high yield and purity using the green reagents, dimethyl carbonate and diethyl carbonate, under acid catalysis. The present methodology is free of the disadvantages of base catalysis described earlier, such as high temperatures, use of autoclaves, use of the expensive DBU as base in stoichiometric amounts and the carbonate as solvent. High chemoselectivity is observed in the case of hydroxybenzoic acids.