Transesterification of Lipids with Boron Trichloride

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Abstract
The use of boron trichloride as an acidic catalyst for methylation of fatty acids and transesterification of lipids was investigated. This use of this reagent had not been previously studied. The following article reports a study of this transesterification technique for qualitative use in connection with gas chromatography. Its effectiveness as an acid catalyst was compared with boron trifluoride. Boron trichloride is equivalent to boron trifluoride in treatment of fatty acids, providing nearly instantaneous methylation, and it is more active than boron trifluoride in transesterification, providing faster rates. A rapid procedure was developed for the formation of methyl esters from bacterial lipids for the study of bacterial composition by gas chromatography. Because of the dehydrating effect of boron trichloride and the solvent effect of this catalyst in methanol, wet bacteria may be treated directly in a combined extraction-transesterification procedure.

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