The hydrolysis of amides can have termolecular kinetics

Can acetate be acting as a base With a piCaH of about 5 it certainly cannot remove the proton from the alcohol (pATaH about 15) before the reaction starts. What it can do is to remove the proton from the alcohol as the reaction occurs. 

This type of catalysis, which is available to any base, not only strong bases, is called general base catalysis and will be discussed more in Chapters 41 and 50. It does not speed the reaction up very much but it does lower the energy of the transition state leading to the tetrahedral intermediate since that intermediate is first formed as a neutral compound instead of a dipolar species. Here is the mechanism for the uncatalysed reaction. 

The disadvantage of general base catalysis is that the first, rate-determining, step is termolecular. It is inherently unlikely that three molecules will collide with each other simultaneously and in the next section wc shall reject such an explanation for amide hydrolysis. In this case, however, if ROH is the solvent, it will always be present in any collision so a termolecular step is just about acceptable. 

When we come to reactions of amides we are at the bottom of the scale of reactivity. Because of the efficient delocalization of the nitrogen lone pair into the carbonyl group, nucleophilic attack on the carbonyl group is very difficult. In addition the leaving group (NH2, p aH about 35) is very bad indeed. 

You might indeed have guessed from our previous example, the hydrolysis of esters, where the transition states for formation and breakdown of the tetrahedral intermediate had about the same energies, that in the hydrolysis of amide the second step becomes rate-determining. This offers the opportunity for further base catalysis. If a second hydroxide ion removes the proton from the tetrahedral intermediate, the loss of NH2 is made easier and the product is the more stable carboxylate ion. 

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