Green acetalization of glycerol and carbonyl catalyzed by FeCl3·6H2O

A new and mild method of glycerol acetalization reaction with various carbonyl compounds catalyzed by the cheap and simple iron catalyst FeCl3·6H2O has been developed. This method which consists in the transformation of glycerol to cyclic acetals under mild conditions, with or without solvent, allowed interesting results: glycerol acetalization using ketones leads to the corresponding 1,3-dioxolanes with a very good selectivity (97–100%), whereas mixture of 1,3-dioxolanes and 1,3-dioxanes was formed when using aldehydes, with a good selectivity toward 1,3-dioxanes up to 76%.