Acetic Anhydride → N-[[4-(Tetradecyloxy)phenyl]methyl]acetamide

To a room temperature mixture of 15 g of product from Example 99, 0.229 g of 4-N,N-dimethylaminopyridine and 50 ml of methylene chloride is added 5 ml of acetic anhydride. An additional 50 ml of methylene chloride is added and the solution is stirred at room temperature for 69 hours. The reaction is poured into half saturated sodium bicarbonate and extracted with methylene chloride. The combined organic layers are washed with half saturated sodium bicarbonate, water and saturated sodium chloride. The dried methylene chloride layer is concentrated in vacuo and purified by chromatography (silica gel: 5% methyl alcohol/chloroform) to give 16.29 g of the desired product as colorless prisms.