Researchers from China conducted an experiment to analyze the effect of ionic liquids on the enzymatic transesterification of ethyl ferulate (EF) with castor oil. Three kinds of ionic liquids (BF₄^—, PF₆^— and TF₂N^—) were used for the experiment.

Of the three kinds of imidazolium ionic liquids, EMIMPF₆ exhibited the highest ethyl ferulate conversion and showed excellent reaction selectivity for lipophilic castor oil based feruloylated mono- and di-acylglycerols (FMAGs and FDAGs) formation.

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