Ethylene glycol distearate (EGDS) is extensively used in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Even in textile industries as a softener, EGDS is in demand. In this paper, synthesis of EGDS by esterification of ethylene glycol and stearic acid has been described using a solid acid catalyst under microwave (MW) irradiation in a solvent-free system. Conventional heating takes more than 4-6 h to give a mixture of EGDS and ethylene glycol monostearate (EGMS). Under MW irradiation, the highest conversion of 97% of the acid was obtained in 10 min. The reaction mixture was analyzed by acid value, FT-IR, 1 H-NMR and mass spectroscopy. The EGDS synthesis was optimized concerning various parameters such as reaction time, different catalysts, catalyst loading (wt/wt%), temperature, and MW power. Heterogeneous catalysis, intensified with MW irradiation, makes the esterification process more promising route for possible application at industrial scale. Graphic abstractElectronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https ://doi.

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