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Acid Catalyzed Hydrolysis of Esters (II)

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    5921
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    Introduction

    Esters can be cleaved back into a carboxylic acid and an alcohol by reaction with water and a catalytic amount of acid.

    General Reaction

    1.jpg

    Example 1:
    2.jpg

    Mechanism

    1) Protonation of the Carbonyl

    3.jpg

    2) Nucleophilic attack by water

    4.jpg

    3) Proton transfer

    5.jpg

    4) Leaving group removal

    6.jpg

    Contributors

    Prof. Steven Farmer (Sonoma State University)


    Acid Catalyzed Hydrolysis of Esters (II) is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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