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Esters can be converted to other esters in a process known as transesterification. Transesterification can be either acid- or base-catalyzed, and involves the reaction of an ester with an alcohol. Unfortunately, because the leaving group is also an alcohol, the forward and reverse reactions will often occur at similar rates.
If the alcohol produced by the reaction can be separated from the reactants by distillation this will drive the equilibrium toward the products. This means that esters with larger alkoxy groups can be made from methyl or ethyl esters in high purity by heating the mixture of ester, acid/base, and large alcohol.
For more valuable or sensitive substrates (for example, biomaterials) other, milder procedures such as Steglich esterification are used. The reaction is often carried out without a solvent (particularly when a large reagent excess of the alcohol reagent is used) or in a non-polar solvent (e.g. toluene, hexane) that can facilitate Dean–Stark ...
Saponification is a process of cleaving esters into carboxylate salts and alcohols by the action of aqueous alkali. Typically aqueous sodium hydroxide solutions are used. [1] [2] It is an important type of alkaline hydrolysis. When the carboxylate is long chain, its salt is called a soap. The saponification of ethyl acetate gives sodium acetate ...
An example of an ester formation is the substitution reaction between a carboxylic acid (R−C(=O)−OH) and an alcohol (R'OH), forming an ester (R−C(=O)−O−R'), where R and R′ are organyl groups, or H in the case of esters of formic acid.
The reaction usually requires a catalyst, such as concentrated sulfuric acid: R−OH + R'−CO 2 H → R'−CO 2 R + H 2 O. Other types of ester are prepared in a similar manner−for example, tosyl (tosylate) esters are made by reaction of the alcohol with 4-toluenesulfonyl chloride in pyridine.
Alcohol oxidation is a collection of oxidation reactions in organic chemistry that convert alcohols to aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, and esters. The reaction mainly applies to primary and secondary alcohols. Secondary alcohols form ketones, while primary alcohols form aldehydes or carboxylic acids. [1] A variety of oxidants can be used.
[4] [6] Alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase are present at their highest concentrations (in liver mitochondria). [98] [107] But these enzymes are widely expressed throughout the body, such as in the stomach and small intestine. [2] Some alcohol undergoes a first pass of metabolism in these areas, before it ever enters the ...