Biodiesel surrogates: achieving performance demands.

Synthesis of surrogate molecules is particularly useful for generating in sight of structural-activity relationships, understanding processes and improving the performance. In order to improve upon the physico-chemical properties of biodiesel, methyl, ethyl, isopropyl and n-butyl esters of beta-branched fatty acid have been synthesized, initiating from beta-branched alcohols. Beta-branched alcohols upon oxidation gave corresponding acids, which were converted to their esters.