Zinc-mediated efficient and environmentally benign synthesis of salicylate esters

Considerable synthetic effort has been devoted to acid- or base-catalysed transesterification of alkyl salicylate with alcohol in order to synthesize salicylate esters efficiently. In this study, the transesterification of methyl salicylate with 12 different alcohols was carried out by the use of Zn dust as a catalyst. Depending on the alcohol used in the transesterification reaction, the completion of the reaction was within a range of 8–15 h at a temperature between 100 and 170°C. The use of Zn dust provided reusability and almost complete recovery with moderate to excellent yields (42%–97%). The structural elucidation of the products was performed using IR, ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and GC–MS data obtained from the Wiley GC/MS Library and the in-house “Parkim Fragrance House GC/MS Library.”