Sandbox Esterification

Esterification

Esterification is a chemical reaction of an acid with an alcohol (R'OH) to form an ester (RCOOR'). Usually esterification refers to reaction between an organic (carboxylic) acid (RCOOH) with an alcohol (R'OH) to form an ester (RCOOR') and water and called Fischer esterification. The chemical reaction for Fischer esterification is given below:

Esterification of fatty acid with ethanol

The with protonation of the carbonyl group of the carboxylic acid by the catalyst (H+). In the , the yyyy. In the , the zzzz. In the , the aaaa. In the , the bbbb.

An animated example of this reaction is shown. Please click on the buttons below to animate the reaction with different representations. Use the popup button to enlarge the view and the quality button to turn on anti-aliasing.

The animation was originally done by Prof. Dr. Verena Pietzner; for details, see her web site ChiLe^[1]. The implementation into Proteopedia was done by Prof. Jaime Prilusky, Prof. Joel L. Sussman

and Veronika Pelekhov.

See also

S_N1 reaction: Substitution of Cl⁻ and tert-Butanol
S_N2 reaction: substitution of Cl⁻ and methanol

References

1. ↑ ChiLe Web Site