Basic hydrolysis of esters

Both esters and amides undergo hydrolysis reactions. In a hydrolysis reaction, the ester or amide bond is cleaved, or split in two, to form two products. As mentioned earlier, the hydrolysis of an ester produces a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. The hydrolysis of an amide produces a carboxylic acid and an amine. There are two methods of hydrolysis acidic hydrolysis and basic hydrolysis. Both methods are shown in Figure 2.9. Hydrolysis usually requires heat. In acidic hydrolysis, the ester or amide reacts with water in the presence of an acid, such as H2SO4. In basic hydrolysis, the ester or amide reacts with the OH ion, from NaOH or water, in the presence of a base. Soap is made by the basic hydrolysis of ester bonds in vegetable oils or animal fats. 

While esters are much more easily hydrolyzed than amides, traditional saponification suffers from the fact that most esters are not soluble in aqueous base and so the rate of the hydrolysis is limited by the solubility, not by the reactivity. This limitation is overcome by the use of lithium hydroxide in aqueous THF, the reagent of choice for basic hydrolysis of esters. Methyl and ethyl esters are cleaved readily by this combination as most esters are soluble in this solvent mixture. 

In the basic hydrolysis of esters and amides, the formation of carboxylate ion is irreversible and so serves to drive the reaction to completion. 

As we have seen before, a variety of experiments are used to support or disprove a mechanism that has been postulated for a particular reaction. The mechanism for the basic hydrolysis of esters, shown in Figure 19.4, involves cleavage of the bond between... 

Basic hydrolysis of esters, called saponification, avoids the equilibrium of the Fischer esterification. Hydroxide ion attacks the carbonyl group to give a tetrahedral intermediate. Expulsion of alkoxide ion gives the acid, and a fast proton transfer gives the carboxylate ion and the alcohol. This strongly exothermic proton transfer drives the saponification to completion. A full mole of base is consumed to deprotonate the acid. 

In a similar way, transition metal ions catalyze the basic hydrolysis of esters of a-amino acids [271]. The rate law [272, 273] is analogous to that observed in the hydration of phenanthroline-nitrile, viz. 

From the previous examples it is apparent that simple imprinting with a transition state analogue does not lead to cavities with sufficient catalytic activity in addition, catalytically active groups have to be placed in proper position within the cavity. This is also true for catalytic antibodies since it was shown that for, example, a guanidinium group (of the amino acid L-arginine) plays an important role in the catalysis of the basic hydrolysis of esters by a catalytic antibody. 

The equation depends on the fact that basic hydrolysis of esters is very sensitive to polar effects and acid hydrolysis is not. Both are sensitive to steric effects, but since the transition states differ from each other by only two hydrogen atoms, as shown in Figure 5.3, steric hindrance would affect both reactions similarly. The difference between the acid and basic terms in Equation (12) therefore eliminates the steric contribution to the substituent constant, leaving only polar and resonance contributions. Further, since the reaction site does not form part of a conjugated system, any resonance effect will be negligible, leaving the polar contribution as the dominant factor. Lists of aliphatic substituent constants (a ) have been published [11]. 

Functional group manipulation of 26, including deoxygenation and Baeyer-Villiger oxidation, led to 27. Basic hydrolysis of ester 27 resulted in the cleavage of the ether bridge to provide keto-alcohol 28, which was elaborated into racemic Prelog-Djerassi lactone 29 (Scheme 19.13). 

Ester hydrolysis in base is called saponification, which means soap making Over 2000 years ago the Phoenicians made soap by heating animal fat with wood ashes Animal fat is rich m glycerol triesters and wood ashes are a source of potassium car bonate Basic hydrolysis of the fats produced a mixture of long chain carboxylic acids as their potassium salts... 

In base the tetrahedral intermediate is formed m a manner analogous to that pro posed for ester saponification Steps 1 and 2 m Figure 20 8 show the formation of the tetrahedral intermediate m the basic hydrolysis of amides In step 3 the basic ammo group of the tetrahedral intermediate abstracts a proton from water and m step 4 the derived ammonium ion dissociates Conversion of the carboxylic acid to its corresponding carboxylate anion m step 5 completes the process and renders the overall reaction irreversible... 

Saponification (Section 20 11) Hydrolysis of esters in basic solution The products are an alcohol and a carboxylate salt The term means soap making and denves from the process whereby animal fats were converted to soap by heating with wood ashes... 

Treatment of (89) with lead tetraacetate generates the unstable open-ring aldehyde (90) which is quickly converted to a dimethylacetal (91). Following basic hydrolysis of the methyl ester and acetates, the acetal is cleaved with aqueous acid to produce TxB2. A number of other approaches, including one starting from the Corey aldehyde, have been described (58). 

Carbonates, like esters, can be cleaved by basic hydrolysis, but generally are much less susceptible to hydrolysis because of the resonance effect of the second oxygen. In general, carbonates are cleaved by taking advantage of the properties of the second alkyl substituent (e.g., zinc reduction of the 2,2,2-trichloroethyl carbonate). The reagents used to introduce the carbonate onto alcohols react readily with amines as well. As expected, basic hydrolysis of the resulting carbamate is considerably more difficult than basic hydrolysis of a carbonate. 

In a penicillin synthesis, the carboxyl group was protected as a / -bromophenacyl ester that was cleaved by nucleophilic displacement (PhSK, DMF, 20°, 30 min, 64% yield). Hydrogenolysis of a benzyl ester was difficult (perhaps because of catalyst poisoning by sulfur) basic hydrolysis of methyl or ethyl esters led to attack at the /3-lactam ring. ... 

Another alternative for preparing a primary amine from an alkyl halide is the Gabriel amine synthesis, which uses a phthalimide alkylation. An imide (—CONHCO—) is similar to a /3-keto ester in that the acidic N-H hydrogen is flanked by two carbonyl groups. Thus, imides are deprotonated by such bases as KOH, and the resultant anions are readily alkylated in a reaction similar to the acetoacetic ester synthesis (Section 22.7). Basic hydrolysis of the N-alkylated imide then yields a primary amine product. The imide hydrolysis step is analogous to the hydrolysis of an amide (Section 21.7). 

The Hammett equation is not successful for reactions of aliphatic compounds if the normal cr constants are used. A new scale of substituent constants, labeled cr, was invented to allow the extension of the method to such systems. The difference in the rates of hydrolysis of esters in basic versus acidic solutions is used to define the scale. The transition states are... 

Reactions of 2,3-dioxo-l,2,3,5,6,7-hexahydropyrido[l,2,3-carboxylic acids and the homologous acetic and propionic acids, prepared by basic hydrolysis of the corresponding ester, with amines, 28% NH4OH, and hydroxylamine derivatives in the presence of l-ethyl-3-[3-(dimethylamino)propyl]carbodiimide and hydroxybenztria-zole <1995BML1527>, 1995BML1533>, and in the presence of NEt3 and A, A -bis(2-oxo-3-oxazolidinyl)phosphinic... 

We have studied this reaction in considerable detail (88) and have found that when one uses quinine (eq. [25]) or any one of the chiral bases, a variety of aldehydes react with ketene to form the corresponding p-lactones in excellent chemical and nearly quantitative enantiomeric yields. Equation [25] exemplifies the reaction. Note that mild basic hydrolysis of the lactone furnishes a trichlo-rohydroxy acid that was prepared earlier by McKenzie (89). If one uses quinidine as catalyst, the process furnishes the natural (S)-malic acid. Note that ketene first acylates the free hydroxyl group of quinine, so that the actual catalyst is the alkaloid ester. 

A) The acid hydrolysis of an amide produces a carboxylic acid and an amine. (B) The basic hydrolysis of an ester produces the salt of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. 

Acidic hydrolysis of esters gives directly carbojqrlic acids while basic hydrolysis gives carboxylates, which on acidification give corresponding carboxylic acids. 

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