Esters hydrolysis, nucleophile

Nucleophilic acyl substitutions at the ester carbonyl group are summarized m Table 20 5 on page 849 Esters are less reactive than acyl chlorides and acid anhydrides Nude ophilic acyl substitution m esters especially ester hydrolysis has been extensively mves tigated from a mechanistic perspective Indeed much of what we know concerning the general topic of nucleophilic acyl substitution comes from studies carried out on esters The following sections describe those mechanistic studies... 

Ester hydrolysis is the most studied and best understood of all nucleophilic acyl sub stitutions Esters are fairly stable in neutral aqueous media but are cleaved when heated with water m the presence of strong acids or bases The hydrolysis of esters m dilute aqueous acid is the reverse of the Eischer esterification (Sections 15 8 and 19 14)... 

The mechanism of acid catalyzed ester hydrolysis is presented m Figure 20 4 It IS precisely the reverse of the mechanism given for acid catalyzed ester formation m Section 19 14 Like other nucleophilic acyl substitutions it proceeds m two stages A... 

Convincing evidence that ester hydrolysis in base proceeds by the second of these two paths namely nucleophilic acyl substitution has been obtained from several sources In one experiment ethyl propanoate labeled with 0 m the ethoxy group was hydrolyzed On isolating the products all the 0 was found m the ethyl alcohol there was no 0 enrichment m the sodium propanoate... 

Ester hydrolysis can also be promoted by nucleophilic catalysis. If a component of the reaction system is a more effective nucleophile toward the carbonyl group than hydroxide ion or water under a given set of conditions, an acyl-transfer reaction can take place to form an intermediate ... 

Nucleophilic participation is important only for esters of alcohols that have pK <13. Specifically, phenyl and trifluoroethyl esters show nucleophilic catalysis, but methyl and 2-chloroethyl esters do not. This result reflects the fete of the tetrahedral intermediate that results fi om nucleophilic participation. For relatively acidic alcohols, the alkoxide group can be eliminated, leading to hydrolysis via nucleophilic catalysis ... 

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. 

Ester hydrolysis is common in biological chemistry, particularly in the digestion of dietary fats and oils. We ll save a complete discussion of the mechanistic details of fat hydrolysis until Section 29.2 but will note for now that the reaction is catalyzed by various lipase enzymes and involves two sequential nucleophilic acyl substitution reactions. The first is a trcinsesterificatiori reaction in which an alcohol gioup on the lipase adds to an ester linkage in the tat molecule to give a tetrahedral intermediate that expels alcohol and forms an acyl... 

The most effective catalyst for the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate was reported to be a cycloheptaamylose derivative containing approximately two imidazole groups per cycloheptaamylose molecule (Cramer and Mackensen, 1970). At pH 7.5 and 23°, this material accelerates the rate of release of phenol from p-nitrophenyl acetate by a factor of 300 when compared with the hydrolysis of this substrate in the absence of catalyst. However, when compared with an equivalent concentration of imidazole, which is an effective catalyst for ester hydrolysis at neutral pHs, the rate accelerations imposed by this cycloheptaamylose derivative are only two- to threefold. Cramer and Mackensen attributed this rate enhancement to nucleophilic displacement of phenol from the included ester by a cycloheptaamylose hydroxyl group, assisted internally by the attached imidazole group... 

This is like the A1 mechanism except that the protonated substrate SH +, instead of reacting alone, reacts with something else in the rate-determining step, a nucleophile or a base, written as Nu in equation (41). A typical example of this very common mechanism is ester hydrolysis, say of the methyl esters in equation (42), where SH+ reacts with two water molecules in the slow step,29 giving the neutral tetrahedral intermediate [5] directly. Reasonably enough, the rate equations obtainable are very similar to those for the A1 mechanism, with the addition of an extra aNu term, see equation (43) ... 

Now a very useful feature of the excess acidity method comes into play likely nucleophiles or bases can be tested by subtracting their log activities or concentrations from the left-hand side of equations (59) and (60), and the species reacting with SH+ is uniquely identified when linearity of the result against X is achieved.145,161 For instance, subtraction of twice the water activity is required to attain linearity in ester hydrolysis processes such as equation (42), as shown in Fig. 11 for methyl benzoate41 and ethyl benzoate.210 The water activities given in Table 3 were used. The parameters of the lines in Fig. 11, obtained by curve-fitting, are methyl benzoate, slope 0.921 + 0.010, intercept... 

Catalysis, enzymatic, physical organic model systems and the problem of, 11,1 Catalysis, general base and nucleophilic, of ester hydrolysis and related reactions, 5,237 Catalysis, micellar, in organic reactions kinetic and mechanistic implications, 8,271 Catalysis, phase-transfer by quaternary ammonium salts, 15,267 Catalytic antibodies, 31,249... 

Ester hydrolysis, general base and nucleophilic catalysis, 5,237... 

General base and nucleophilic catalysis of ester hydrolysis and related reactions, 5, 237... 

Nuclear motion, the principle of least, and the theory of stereoelectronic control, 24, 113 Nucleophiles, partitioning of carbocations between addition and deprotonation. 35, 67 Nucleophilic aromatic photosubstitution, 11,225 Nucleophilic catalysis of ester hydrolysis and related reactions, 5,237 Nucleophilic displacement reactions, gas-phase, 21, 197... 

The study of both carbonyl and carbon acid participation in ester hydrolysis has been used by Bowden and Last (1971) to evaluate certain of the factors suggested for important roles in enzymic catalysis. A first model concerns a comparison of the three formyl esters and shows that the proximity of the formyl to the ester group and internal strain increase in passing along the series, 1,2-benzoate, 1,8-naphthoate and 4,5-phenanthroate. The very large rate enhancements result from the proximity of the internal nucleophile once formed and from internal strain. Strain is increased or induced by the primary... 

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