Bio-polyols synthesized from vegetables oils are a great alternative to petrochemical polyols for polyurethanes industry. The simplest approach to bio-polyols synthesis involves epoxidation of carbon–carbon double bond of unsaturated fatty ester moieties and subsequent epoxide ring-opening by nucleophilic reagents. In order to improve the latter process by increasing both productivity and product quality, the advantages of flow chemistry were exploited, such as facile automation, reproducibility, improved safety and process reliability, investigating for the first time in the literature the methanolysis reaction of epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) in a continuous flow mode.
