No abstract

Transesterification were carried out under microwave irradiation conditions and the effects of imidazolium hydroxide with different branched alkyl side-chains ([Cnmim]OH, n = 2, 3, 4) were investigated. The results showed that less than conventional amount of NaOH, and the alkaline ionic liquids formed clearly biphasic systems immediately after the transesterification of soybean oil with methanol was finished. The method offers significant improvement over conventional techniques in terms of operational simplicity, processing time reduction and excellent yields. Among the imidazolium salts studied, [C2mim]OH proved to be the most efficient catalyst, affording 96 % yield.