Esters formation, acid catalysis

As an alternative to lithium enolates. silyl enolates or ketene acetals may be used in a complementary route to pentanedioates. The reaction requires Lewis acid catalysis, for example aluminum trifluoromethanesulfonate (modest diastereoselectivity with unsaturated esters)72 74 antimony(V) chloride/tin(II) trifluoromethanesulfonate (predominant formation of anti-adducts with the more reactive a,/5-unsaturated thioesters)75 montmorillonite clay (modest to good yields but poor diastereoselectivity with unsaturated esters)76 or high pressure77. 

Exactly the same considerations apply to the esterification of hindered acids (182) in the reverse direction. It will be noticed that this mechanism requires protonation on the less favoured (cf. p. 240) hydroxyl oxygen atom (185) to allow the formation of the acyl carbocationic intermediate (184). Apart from a number of R3C types, a very well known example is 2,4,6-trimethylbenzoic (mesitoic) acid (186), which will not esterify under ordinary acid-catalysis conditions—and nor will its esters (187) hydrolyse. Dissolving acid or ester in cone. H2S04 and pouring this solution into told alcohol or water, respectively, is. found to effect essentially quantitative esterification or hydrolysis as required the reaction proceeds via the acyl cation (188) ... 

There are few cases in which free /3-aldehydo esters have been condensed successfully with ureas. Commonly, alkoxymethylene esters are used. The initial reaction leads to an acyclic intermediate that may require a separate treatment to induce ring closure. The reaction of a /3-keto ester with urea may be a two-step process in which case acid catalysis can be used in the formation of an acyclic intermediate, with ring closure effected by strong alkali. When the ester component is a lactone or chromone, the product contains a hydroxyalkyl <2000JME3837> or 2-hydroxyphenyl substituent <2004S942>, as shown by the synthesis of the 5-(2-hydroxyethyl)-4-pyrimidinone 657 and the 6-(2-hydroxyphenyl)-pyrimidine 659. 

Lipase has been used in organic solvents to produce useful compounds. For example, Zark and Klibanov (8) reported wide applications of enzymes to esterification in preparing optically active alcohols and acids. Inada et al (9) synthesized polyethylene glycol-modified lipase, which was soluble in organic solvent and active for ester formation. These data reveal that lipases are very useful enzymes for the catalysis different types of reactions with rather wide substrate specificities. In this study, it was found that moditied lipase could also synthesize esters and various lipids in organic solvents. Chemically moditied lipases can help to solve today s problems in esteritication and hopefully make broader use of enzymatic reactions that are attractive to the industry. 

Acid catalysis of RO—C—OH formation, like ester formation, depends on formation of the conjugate acid of the carbonyl compound. This is expected to enhance the positive (electrophilic) character of the carbonyl carbon so that the nucleophilic alcohol can add readily to it ... 

Esters, on the other hand, are very common hydrolytic precursors to carboxylic acids. The traditional reaction for the hydrolysis of esters is basic saponification using sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. While acid catalysis can also be employed, preparative methods usually use base catalysis because formation of the carboxylate salt drives the reaction to the right and gives high yields of products. 

In Chapter 12 pyridine was often used as a catalyst in carbonyl substitution reactions. It can act in two ways. In making esters from acid chlorides or anhydrides pyridine can act as a nucleophile as well as a convenient solvent. It is a better nucleophile than the alcohol and this nucleophilic catalysis is discussed in Chapter 12 (p. 282). But nonnucleophilic bases also catalyse these reactions. For example, acetate ion catalyses ester formation from acetic anhydride and alcohols. 

Specific acid catalysis (SAC) involves a rapid protonation of the compound followed by the slow step, which is accelerated in comparison with the uncatalysed reaction because of the greater reactivity of the protonated compound. You have just seen an example with an epoxide. Ester hydrolysis (or formation) is another. Water attacks esters veiy slowly it attacks protonated esters much more quickly. This is just the ordinary mechanism for acid-catalysed ester hydrolysis (or formation) given in Chapter 12. 

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