Esters have the following general formula and are formed by the reaction between the particular carboxylic acid and the proper alcohol. They are thought to be the “derivatives”
of the respective carboxylic acid.
Hence, esters have an acid part and an alcohol part.
According to the problem one method of favoring the formation of an ester is to add excess acetic acid. Thus the reaction of formation of the acetate ester is taking place since acetic acid is the acid involved. From the reaction of formation of the ester it is apparent that addition of more acid to the reaction mixture will favor more product formation. According to Le Chatelier’s principle upon adding more reactant (acetic acid) to the reaction the equilibrium will shift to the right resulting in more product formation to relieve the stress.
For reversible reactions Le Chatelier’s principle is used to generate more products.
According to Le Chatelier’s principle if a system is at equilibrium and the equilibrium is perturbed by either changing the concentration of the reactant or product, temperature, volume or pressure the equilibrium shifts in such a manner so as to relieve the change and a new equilibrium gets established.
Thus the Le Chatelier’s principle can predict the effect of imposed change on a system.
We are going to suggest another method, involving the right-hand side of the equation that will favor formation of the ester.
In this reaction sulfuric acid acts as the catalyst. Utilizing the Le Chatelier’s principle the reaction can be made to generate more products. This can be done by removing the water formed in the reaction (present on the right-hand side of the equation) by distillation. Removal of one of the product will shift the reaction equilibrium towards the right hand–side according to Le Chatelier’s principle and to get relieve from the imposed stress more product will be formed.
Usually the water is removed by distillation in presence of toluene in a Dean-Stark apparatus (a glass ware found in the synthetic laboratories to collect water and also other liquids).
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