Isobutyl formate (structure below) is an ester that has a boiling point of 98.4

Question

Isobutyl formate (structure below) is an ester that has a boiling point of 98.4 degree C and has a pleasant raspberry scent. Draw structures of the carboxylic acid and alcohol that were used to synthesize this ester in the reaction equation provided. If you wanted the equilibrium reaction in Question 1 to favor ester formation, what could do? If methanol and acetic acid are combined, an ester results that has a water solubility of 319g/L at 20 degree C (sigmaaldrich.com). How does the synthesis of this ester cause a problem in your separatory funnel?

Explanation / Answer

there will be a large quantity of unreacted acetic acid at the end of the experiment and this material must be separated from the desired product. This is a tedious process.

But the problem can be overcome by acid base separation.

Extractions :

1.You combine your product mixture with two other solvents. The solvents must be a) immiscible and they must have b )different densities. Hence can be easily separated. Example of solvent pair is water and diethyl ether, CH3CH2OCH2CH3.

2.You mix all of these materials thoroughly so that mutually soluble materials combine, and immiscible materials separate. All kinds of organic compounds dissolve in diethyl ether, but few dissolve in water. Ionic compounds, on the other hand, is miscible in water, but not in diethyl ether.

3. You separate the two solvents using a separatory funnel. Obviously. if acetic acid and isopentyl acetate combine selectively with different solvents, the separation is done.

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