Received August 9, 2009Accepted January 12, 2010Published online February 11, 2010Acylation of alcohols (esterification) with anhydride is an important and routinely utilizedtransformation in organic synthesis. Iodine is a cheap and one of the most powerful anhy-dride activating agents for the esterification of alcohols. Therefore, an efficient and cost ef-fective method was developed for the acylation of pullulan polysaccharide by using differentacid anhydrides activated with iodine. A series of organo-soluble pullulan esters were suc-cessfully synthesized, purified and characterized. Under solvent free conditions, it was feasi-ble to fabricate pullulan nonaacetate and pullulan stearate. Attachment (covalent) of thependant groups onto polymer backbone was verified by spectroscopic techniques. All of theproducts were characterized by using thermal analysis, FTIR and
