“…In direct esterification an excess of polyhydric alcohol is used to obtain incompletely esterified materials. A survey of the literature shows excesses of up to 33 moles of glycol for each mole of fatty acid (183,259,473,474), and up to 11.5 moles of glycerol to 1 mole of fatty acid (28,33,38,39,42,46,59,97,103,241,249,250,253,259,260,264,314,335,352,441,457,459,537,544,548). With the higher polyhydric alcohols, such as erythritol, pentaerythritol, or mannitol, a greater excess seems to be of little value in securing a preponderance of lower esters (53,56,418,477,504,518).…”