Diethyl malonate (DEM) may be oxidised to degraded and undegraded products like acetic acid, oxalic acid, formic acid, glycolic acid , glyoxal, propanedioic acid etc. In the present work, DEM, in tetrahydrofuran and dioxane as solvents, was treated with ditertiary butyl chromate (TBC) in different molar ratios under ordinary heating and microwave irradiation conditions. The spectroscopic, thermal and other studies of the products formed under different conditions, results in valuable generalizations.
