Bhat, N.S.Vinod, N.Tarafder, K.Nayak, M.K.Jana, A.Mal, S.S.Dutta, S.2026-02-042023Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Research, 2023, 62, 43, pp. 17483-174928885885https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.3c01915https://idr.nitk.ac.in/handle/123456789/21628The monoesters and diesters of glucose-derived isosorbide (IS) have potential applications as sustainable dispersants, surfactants, emulsifiers, monomer units for polymers, and plasticizers. This work reports a solvent-free, high-yielding, and scalable pathway for producing the monoesters and diesters of IS by a transesterification reaction using K<inf>2</inf>CO<inf>3</inf> as an efficient, inexpensive, and recyclable base catalyst. In the case of monoesters, the selectivity toward the exo-monoester of IS was found higher than that toward the endo-monoester. The methodology was successfully extended to synthesize the monoesters and diesters of isomannide and isoidide. The gram-scale preparation of alkyl, vinyl, and aryl esters of isohexides was optimized on the reaction temperature, duration, equivalence of the ester reagent, and catalyst loading. Under optimized conditions (50 mol % K<inf>2</inf>CO<inf>3</inf>, 180 °C, 6 h), various aryl and alkyl esters of the isohexides were isolated in satisfactory yields. The unsymmetrical diesters of the isohexides were conveniently synthesized by stepwise transesterification. © 2023 American Chemical Society.CatalystsPotashSolventsTransesterificationAlkyl estersAryl estersBase catalyzedDiestersDispersantsIsosorbideMonoestersMonomer unitsSolvent free conditionsTransesterificationsEsters