Ethyl acetate synthesis by Fischer esterification

Ethyl acetate, or ethyl ethanoate, is a simple ester widely used as a solvent and flavoring. It exists at room temperature as a colourless liquid with a sweet fruity smell. It also serves to some extent as a chemical precursor. There are a few reactions I plan to perform with ethyl acetate in the future.

The most well known method for producing ethyl acetate is Fischer esterification. I've included a brief description of the mechanism at the end of this post. The procedure consists of refluxing acetic acid with ethanol in the presence of a catalytic amount of sulphuric acid followed by some workup and purification steps.

The glacial acetic acid used in the procedure was first purified by drying over anhydrous copper(ii) sulphate, distilling, then drying again.

First off, I set up an ice bath and placed in it, a 500ml round bottom flask. To the flask, I added 28ml (0.4797 moles) of ethanol and 27ml (0.4716 moles) of glacial acetic acid. Once the temperature of the mixture had dropped to around 12 C, I began adding 6ml of 98% sulphuric acid in very small portions while swirling the flask at such a rate that the temperature never rose above 20 C. Once complete addition of the acid was achieved, I attached a Liebig condenser, with cold water circulating, to the flask. I then gently refluxed the homogeneous mixture for 30 minutes using a water bath as the heat source. After reflux, there was very little if any visible change in the mixture, which remained a clear liquid. I allowed everything to cool to room temperature, then removed the condenser and set the flask up for simple distillation. I then distilled off approximately two thirds of the mixture into a 150ml beaker. Care was taken to cover the connection between the vacuum adapter and receiving flask with plenty of cling wrap to prevent evaporation of the distillate. I washed the distillate in the flask with 14ml of saturated sodium bicarbonate solution, then with 15ml of concentrated calcium chloride solution. Each of these washings resulted in a two-layered system with the upper organic layer containing the ethyl acetate. With each wash, the layers were thoroughly stirred together for 2 minutes. I then separated off the organic layer and dried it over 3A molecular sieves for 40 minutes. The dry liquid was then transferred to a 500ml flask and another simple distillation was performed.

The results of the distillation were unclear, so I added all the fractions back to the 500ml flask and performed the distillation again. The first fraction came over at about 66 C and was discarded. Only one other fraction came over which was presumably the ethyl acetate at 68-73 C. In the end, I was left with 10.5ml (0.1075 moles) of dry ethyl acetate as a colourless liquid with a sweet fruity ethereal aroma. If pure, this is a 22% yield. The density of the product was 0.79g/cm³ which unfortunately isn't overly close to the established value of 0.902g/cm³. Considering this, and the smell which is identical to online descriptions, I believe the product is mostly ethyl acetate, albeit not very pure.

I blame my extremely poor yield on the fact that I was working on a smaller scale then I'm used to and that I didn't dry the ethanol before the reaction.

Brief description of Fischer esterification: The acid catalyst first protonates the carbonyl oxygen on the carboxylic acid to form a charged oxonium ion. The oxonium ion causes the carbonyl carbon to have a partial positive charge. The alcohol then attacks the now partially positive carbonyl carbon forming a complex intermediate containing another oxonium ion, which when it encounters another alcohol molecule, protonates it, thus transferring the oxonium ion to the alcohol.

One of the resulting neutral molecule's hydroxyl groups is then protonated by the acid catalyst forming yet another oxonium ion. The O(+)H2 oxonium ion then breaks off the molecule as H2O, leaving behind the ester product with a protonated carbonyl oxygen. Finally another alcohol molecule comes along and grabs the hydrogen from the carbonyl oxygen, once again transferring the oxonium ion onto the alcohol and yielding the neutral ester product.

H2SO4 <==> 2 H [+] + SO4 [2-]

CH3-C(=O)-OH + H [+] <==> CH3-C(=O[+]H)-OH

CH3-C(=O[+]H)-OH + C2H5OH <==> CH3-C(-OH)(-OH)-O[+]HC2H5

CH3-C(-OH)(-OH)-O[+]HC2H5 + C2H5OH <==> CH3-C(-OH)(-OH)-OC2H5 + C2H5O(+)H2

CH3-C(-OH)(-OH)-OC2H5 + H [+] <==> CH3-C(-OH)(-O[+]H2)-OC2H5

CH3-C(-OH)(-O[+]H2)-OC2H5 <==> CH3-C(=O[+]H)-OC2H5

 CH3-C(=O[+]H)-OC2H5 + C2H5OH <==>  CH3-C(=O)-OC2H5 + C2H5O[+]H2