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Fischer Esterification

  • Page ID
    5535
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    Fischer esterification is the esterification of a Carboxylic acid by heating it with an alcohol in the presence of a strong acid as the catalyst.

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    Going from reactants to products simplified

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    Example

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    Mechanism

    The overall reaction is reversible; to drive the reaction to completion, it is necessary to exploit Le Chateliers principle, which can be done either by continuously removing the water formed from the system or by using a large excess of the alcohol.

    1) Protonation of the carbonyl by the acid. The carbonyl is now activated toward nucleophilic attack.

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    2) Nucleophilic attack on the carbonyl

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    3) Proton transfer

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    4) Water leaves

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    5) Deprotonation

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    Contributors


    Fischer Esterification is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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