Esterification, reaction mechanism

Moreover the presence of chelate bonds makes it possible to explain both certain properties of nitrocellulose and phenomena connected with the esterification reaction mechanism of cellulose, all of which will be discussed later. 

Depending on the requirements of the chemical procedure, the processing method may be varied with different mechanical arrangements to remove the by-product, water, in order to drive the esterification reaction toward completion. 

The esterification reaction may be carried out with a number of different anhydrides but the literature indicates that acetic anhydride is preferred. The reaction is catalysed by amines and the soluble salts of the alkali metals. The presence of free acid has an adverse effect on the esterification reaction, the presence of hydrogen ions causing depolymerisation by an unzipping mechanism. Reaction temperatures may be in the range of 130-200°C. Sodium acetate is a particularly effective catalyst. Esterification at 139°C, the boiling point of acetic anhydride, in the presence of 0.01% sodium acetate (based on the anhydride) is substantially complete within 5 minutes. In the absence of such a catalyst the percentage esterification is of the order of only 35% after 15 minutes. 

Acid-catalyzed ester hydrolysis can occur by more than one mechanism, depending on the structure of the ester. The usual pathway, however, is just the reverse of a Fischer esterification reaction (Section 21.3). The ester is first activated toward nucleophilic attack by protonation of the carboxyl oxygen atom, and nucleophilic addition of water then occurs. Transfer of a proton and elimination of alcohol yields the carboxylic acid (Figure 21.8). Because this hydrolysis reaction is the reverse of a Fischer esterification reaction, Figure 21.8 is the reverse of Figure 21.4. 

The reaction mechanism for the heterogeneous and homogeneous acid-catalysed esterification were reported to be similar (17). However, there is a major difference concerning the snrface hydrophobicity. Reaction pockets are created inside a hydrophobic environment, where the fatty acid molecules can be absorbed and react further. Water molecules are unlikely to be absorbed on sites enclosed in hydrophobic areas. 

Tanaka and Kakiuchi (6) proposed catalyst activation via a hydrogen donor such as an alcohol as a refinement to the mechanism discussed by Fischer (7) for anhydride cured epoxies in the presence of a tertiary amine. The basic catalyst eliminates esterification reactions (8). Shechter and Wynstra ( ) further observed that at reaction conditions BDMA does not produce a homopolymerization of oxiranes. 

Fig. 3. Reaction mechanism of esterification of 2-hydroxyalkylamides via an oxazolinium intermediate...

The direct action of nitric acid and its mixtures on the parent alcohol is by far the most important method for the production of nitrate esters on both an industrial and laboratory scale." While such reactions are essentially esterifications they are commonly referred to as 6>-nitrations because the reaction mechanism, involving substitution of hydrogen for a nitro group, is not dissimilar to other nitrations and frequently involves the same nitrating species. 

Catalysis by Solid Acids. Two aspects are considered here. The first aspect is concerned with transesterification reactions catalyzed by solid acids. Unfortunately, little research dealing with this subject has been reported in the literature. The second aspect deals with esterification reactions of carboxylic acids (or FFAs). This second part addresses an important characteristic of inexpensive TG feedstocks, i.e., high FFA content. Ideally, an active solid catalyst should be able to carry out transesterification and esterification simultaneously, thus eliminating pretreatment steps. It is likely that heterogeneous catalysts that perform well in esterification should also be good candidates for transesterification since the mechanisms for both reactions are quite similar. 

Deters (14) vibromilled a blend of cellulose and cellulose triacetate. The acetic acid content of cellulose acetate decreased with grinding time (40 h) while that of the cellulose increased, suggesting the formation of a block or graft copolymer or of an esterification reaction by acetic acid developed by mechanical reaction. Baramboim (/5) dissolved separately in CO polystyrene, poly(methyl methacrylate), and poly(vinyl acetate). After mixing equal volumes of solutions of equivalent polymer concentration, the solvent was evaporated at 50° C under vacuum and the resultant product ball-milled. The examination of the ball-milled products showed the formation of free radicals which copolymerized. 

Transesterification Transesterification occurs when an ester is treated with another alcohol. This reaction can be acid catalysed or base catalysed. This is where the alcohol part of the ester can be replaced with a new alcohol component. The reaction mechanism is very similar to the Fischer esterification. 

For the esterification reaction, there is of course no way of distinguishing between the two proposed mechanisms. The fact that protonated acetic acid reacts with H2lsO to produce CH3C(OH)18OH+ in a thermoneutral exchange with displacement of H20 can be accommodated by either of the mechanisms. Failure to observe the alcoholysis process (76) cannot be rationalized in terms of one mechanism or the other. 

According to our findings, all soluble metal compounds of an amphoteric nature are effective esterification catalysts. If, when concluding the theoretical considerations, the amphoteric nature of the metals is described as their ability to function as cations in salts, and also to form anionic hydroxy or alkoxy complexes, this offers the possibility of using the reaction mechanism just discussed for all effective metals in a correspondingly modified manner. 

As appears from the examination of the equations (giving the best fit to the rate data) in Table 21, no relation between the form of the kinetic equation and the type of catalyst can be found. It seems likely that the equations are really semi-empirical expressions and it is risky to draw any conclusion about the actual reaction mechanism from the kinetic model. In spite of the formalism of the reported studies, two observations should be mentioned. Maatman et al. [410] calculated from the rate coefficients for the esterification of acetic acid with 1-propanol on silica gel, the site density of the catalyst using a method reported previously [418]. They found a relatively high site density, which justifies the identification of active sites of silica gel with the surface silanol groups made by Fricke and Alpeter [411]. The same authors [411] also estimated the values of the standard enthalpy and entropy changes on adsorption of propanol from kinetic data from the relatively low values they presume that propanol is weakly adsorbed on the surface, retaining much of the character of the liquid alcohol. 

In the homogeneous mechanism, the reaction is assumed to start by protonation of one of the reactants, either ester (mechanisms denoted as Aac1 and Aac2 [397,398]) or, less frequently, alcohol (mechanism Aal1). It seems likely that protonation of reactants is an important step in esterification catalysed by ion exchangers, too. This follows from all that has been said above about the effect of the acidic properties of ion exchangers on their catalytic activity and is further supported by the effect of the dielectric constant of solvents (Fig. 18), which indicates that the reaction mechanism involves a positive ion and a dipolar molecule [454]. 

Thus, to define the mechanism of either reaction under given experimental conditions is to define the mechanisms of both, since the transition state or states of lowest energy are necessarily the same in either direction. In practice, however, ester hydrolysis and formation are not carried out under the same conditions. Hydrolysis is carried out in water, but esterification reactions... 

The mechanism of this type of esterification reaction has been much studied in recent years, using diphenyldiazomethane. In alcoholic solvents the mechanism of the reaction involves a rate-determining proton transfer from the acid to the carbon atom of the diazoalkane, to form a benzhydryldiazonium-carboxylate ion-pair135, viz. 

Another practical limitation of esterification reactions is steric hindrance. If either the acid or the alcohol participants possesses highly branched groups, the positions of equilibrium are less favorable and the rates of esterification are slow. In general, the ease of esterification for alcohols, ROH, by the mechanism described is primary R > secondary R > tertiary R with a given carboxylic acid. 

Because the rates of this reaction are very rapid, normal sampling techniques were not satisfactory and an infrared technique was used. This esterification reaction was shown to be about 100 times faster than the disproportionation reaction and inter-intra-molecular assistance was also found to be important. This assistance seems to be a common pattern in acid-catalysed processes of oligosiloxanols in inert solvents. In dioxane solvent the redistribution kinetics can be interpreted in terms of an unzipping mechanism. The ratedetermining step is terminal silanol cleavage by water forming dimethylsilanediol which rapidly reacts with other substrate silanols (Scheme 4). 

The combination of carboxyl activation by a carbodiimide and catalysis by DMAP provides a useful method for in situ activation of carboxylic acids for reaction with alcohols.10 The reaction proceeds at room temperature. Carbodiimides are widely applied in the synthesis of polypeptides from amino acids. The proposed mechanism for this esterification reaction involves activation of the acid via isourea 28 followed by reaction with another acid molecule to form anhydride... 

Like the AVADA and the AlkyClean processes, these two processes also replace the liquid acid/base catalysts with solid acids and bases [192]. Although the reaction mechanism for the heterogeneous acid-catalyzed esterification is similar to the homogeneously catalyzed one [207,208], there is an important difference concerning the relationship between the surface hydrophobicity and the catalyst s activity. This is especially true for fatty acids, which are very lipophilic compounds. One can envisage three cases First, if there are isolated Bronsted acid sites surrounded by a... 

---