Question

What is hydrolysis of an ester ?​

Answer 1

Answer:

Ester hydrolysis is a reaction that breaks an ester bond with a molecule of water or a hydroxide ion to form a carboxylic acid and an alcohol. One common use of ester hydrolysis is to create soaps, which are the salts of fatty acids from triglycerides. This process is called saponification.

Answer 2

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Hydrolysing esters means splitting them into carboxylic acids (or their salts) and alcohols by the action of water, dilute acid or dilute alkali. It starts by looking at the hydrolysis of simple esters like ethyl ethanoate, and goes on to look at hydrolysing bigger, more complicated ones to make soap.

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What is hydrolysis?

Technically, hydrolysis is a reaction with water. That is exactly what happens when esters are hydrolysed by water or by dilute acids such as dilute hydrochloric acid.

The alkaline hydrolysis of esters actually involves reaction with hydroxide ions, but the overall result is so similar that it is lumped together with the other two.

• Hydrolysis using water or dilute acid

The reaction with pure water is so slow that it is never used. The reaction is catalysed by dilute acid, and so the ester is heated under reflux with a dilute acid like dilute hydrochloric acid or dilute sulphuric acid.

• Hydrolysis using dilute alkali

This is the usual way of hydrolysing esters. The ester is heated under reflux with a dilute alkali like sodium hydroxide solution.

• Hydrolysing complicated esters to make soap

This next bit deals with the alkaline hydrolysis (using sodium hydroxide solution) of the big esters found in animal and vegetable fats and oils.

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