What a learner can do afterwards
- Writes the reactions of a carboxylic acid with a carbonate, with a metal and with an alkali
- Explains why a carboxylic acid counts as weak and is still acidic enough to release carbon dioxide
- Writes esterification with its catalyst and explains why the yield is limited
- Compares acid hydrolysis with alkaline hydrolysis of an ester and gives a use for each
1 · Read
Pour vinegar onto baking soda and it fizzes at once. Vinegar carries acetic acid and baking soda is a carbonate, and acid plus carbonate gives a salt plus water plus carbon dioxide.
Acetic acid is weak, with only about 1 in 100 split at a time, yet the fizz still finishes. Each used-up H+ is topped up from the waiting molecules, so weak never meant too weak to react.
Stir acetic acid with ethanol and you get ethyl acetate, the fruity ester, plus water. An acid catalyst starts the reaction off, but it also runs backwards, so the yield never completes.
Hydrolysis runs the ester back. With acid you get the carboxylic acid and the alcohol again, while with sodium hydroxide you get the salt instead, which is the route from fats to soap.
Weak acids still fizz with carbonates, ester-making never finishes, and hydrolysis choice decides salt or acid.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
Learn first
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.