Esterification of acetic acid with ethanol
Acetic acid and ethanol condense to ethyl acetate and water.
CC(=O)O.CCO>>CCOC(C)=O.O
Esterification
A carboxylic acid and an alcohol join to form an ester, releasing a molecule of water. Below it: runs of this reaction that somebody published, with the conditions they used.
Mechanism written
A reaction of this kind
What it needs, and what it gives
- Reaction class
- Esterification
- Acid catalyst (e.g. H2SO4), heating; equilibrium driven by removing water.
- balanced — the co-products are written out, not dropped
- Mechanism
- Nucleophilic acyl substitution, 3 steps
How it is thought to work
The nucleophile adds to the carbonyl, the carbon holds four groups for a moment, and the leaving group is pushed out as the double bond comes back.
- The nucleophile attacks the carbonyl carbon
- The carbonyl comes back and the leaving group goes
- A base takes the proton
Related transformations the engine performs
Worked examples
Reading these records
Everything on a record page came from the source that published it. Conditions the source did not state are shown as not recorded, and no typical value is substituted for them. Yields are whatever was measured by whoever ran the experiment.
Other classes
Buchwald–Hartwig amination
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.
Suzuki–Miyaura coupling
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.
Reduction
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.
Deprotection
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.
Oxidation
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.
Reductive amination
Recorded reactions with their conditions, and worked examples where a procedure and atom map were published.