Esters consist in one of the classes of chemical substances widely found in nature. Some esters of low molecular weight tend to have a pleasant flavor and therefore are widely used by food and drinks industries. The esters can be synthesized by the reaction between a carboxylate anion and an alkyl halide, or by Fischer esterification reaction. Industrially, this last reaction is one of the main procedures for the esters synthesis, and according this work, a simple experiment about this specific obtaining method is described and proposed for undergraduate discipline of organic analysis. The preparation of alkyl levulinate and lactate, from levulinic acid and/or lactic acid, is carried out in laboratory, easily, requiring three periods of four hours and is useful for chemistry teaching.
CITATION STYLE
Moraes Calvalcante, P. M., da Silva, R. L., Rufino de Freitas, J. J., Rufino de Freitas, J. C., & de Freitas Filho, J. R. (2015). Proposta de preparação e caracterização de ésteres: Um experimento de análise orgânica na graduação. Educacion Quimica, 26(4), 319–329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eq.2015.07.003
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