Hexanoic Acid + Ethanol > ? and what conditions? (1 Viewer)

[Sassed]

Just wondering what conditions are required for Hexanoic Acid and Ethanol to react and what there products are? Sorry but my textbooks must be hopeless

 

[minijumbuk]

I'm not sure about the temperature, but it should be suffice to say "Heat in a water bath"... Of course there is a minimum temperature, but there is no maximum, because the reflux takes care of that. Just don't go overboard, I guess.

Um, well you need boiling chips to prevent vigorous boiling. Also need some conc. H2SO4 as a catalyst and to absorb some water from the flask, so that the equilibrium shifts to produce more ester.

Products are: Water and Ethylhexanoate

 

[Starlette]

I assume you are making an ester - so the conditions are heat under reflux conditions and concentrated sulfuric acid to remove the water (also to drive the reaction forward, because it is in equlibrium).

 

[Zephyrio]

Technically, esterification doesn't need any "special" conditions to proceed. If the reactants are just left there, they'll produce the ester (which in your case will be ethyl hexanoate) and water. However, because this process is slow, we use reflux (the gentle heating of the reactants, with the vapours of these reactants condensing and dripping back into the reaction vessel so as to stop the escape of these reactants) so that esterification goes more quickly - naturally, since heating any reaction gives the particles more kinetic energy and a greater chance of colliding successfully to form the products. A sulfuric acid catalyst is also used to increase the rate of reaction, decrease the activation energy needed for esterification to occur and also as a dehydrating agent. As it "sucks" or absorbs the water, a product of esterification, the equilibrium shifts right to favour the formation of more water and by doing so, favour the formation of more ester.

Sorry if that was confusing.

 

[Mikejsandrews9269]

If I took equal molecular weights of Ethanol and Hexanoic acid, and left them in a container with molecular sieves for say 2-3 weeks (or longer), would it eventually produce Ethyl caproate minimum 99.5% purity? Or would it likely leave behind unreacted Hexanoic acid?

 

[someth1ng]

If I took equal molecular weights of Ethanol and Hexanoic acid, and left them in a container with molecular sieves for say 2-3 weeks (or longer), would it eventually produce Ethyl caproate minimum 99.5% purity? Or would it likely leave behind unreacted Hexanoic acid?

With just ethanol and hexanoic acid? Definitely not.

If you have some sulfuric acid in there, you'd probably see partial completion but these reactions are very slow at rt. The sieves will only help if you can exceed the activation barrier.