chemsample-esterfication-intro

Esters are made by replacing the hydrogen of a carboxylic group with an organic group. They have the formula R-O-R1. As we found out in this experiment, they have a much more pleasant smell than other compounds that we have dealt with in the past. Esters are important in metabolism and other biochemical processes. They are also used a lot in adding artificial scents to [|products] . In the process of making esters we will need to add more of one of the reagents in order to get a higher yield of our product. To make our product we will be using acid-catalyzed condensation rather than reflux because it takes much longer to carry out a reflux reaction since we would not use a microwave in that process. The esters that we are synthesizing in this experiment will smell like bananas, oranges, and peaches.

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