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Esterification

In an esterification reaction, which reagent donates the OH and which donates the H?

EDIT: Sorry if I was unclear, I meant which donates each part to the water that's formed.
Reply 1
Avatar for fay_102
fay_102
4
to find the answer to that you have to look at the mechanism, it not just the alcohol and acis involved, theres a proton from the acid catalyst a good site that explains this is

http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/catalysis/esterify.html


it may seem complicated but its not really, just make sure your understanding what’s happening at each step.!

btw- it says on the website that no "UK A-level syllabus requires the mechanism for esterfication does your syllabus require it or do you just ant to know out of interest?
Reply 2
Avatar for happyheart
happyheart
3
carboxylic acid donates -OH and alcohol H leaving the C=O from the baroxylic acid and C-O from the alcohol to form the ester linkage COO

hope that helps
Reply 3
Avatar for DominF
DominF
OP
2
i was just curious, salters did say in the specification that i didn't need to know but since i'm doing biochemistry next year i'd like to know how to work out this kind of thing.

thanks guys :smile:
Reply 4
Avatar for trickz
trickz
10
happyheart
carboxylic acid donates -OH and alcohol H leaving the C=O from the baroxylic acid and C-O from the alcohol to form the ester linkage COO

hope that helps


I thought the alcohol donates the -OH group and the carboxylic acid donates the -H :eek:
Reply 5
Avatar for happyheart
happyheart
3
oops yep thats what i meant!
DominF
i was just curious, salters did say in the specification that i didn't need to know but since i'm doing biochemistry next year i'd like to know how to work out this kind of thing.

thanks guys :smile:


you cant work it out from the equations theoretically so you have to do Isotopic Labelling.

Basically you construct your alcohol with an isotope of Oxygen in (Oxygen-18) then analyse the water coming off in the reaction to see if it contains that isotope if it does the OH comes from the Acid, if not it comes from the alcohol :smile:

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