Question

Esterification reactions are carried out in the presence of a strong acid such as H₂SO₄. A carboxylic acid is warmed with an alcohol, and an ester and water are formed. You may have made a fruity-smelling ester in the lab when studying organic functional groups. Name the carboxylic acid that is necessary to complete the following esterification reaction.

Short answer

Carboxylic acid necessary for esterification reaction is 2 -chloropropanoic acid.

Step-by-step solution

Carboxylic acid

Esters are carboxylic acid derivatives in which the hydroxyl group is replaced with an alkoxy group.

If we look at the given ester and take into account the definition of esters, we can easily identify which part of the molecule comes from the carboxylic acid and which from the alcohol.

In esterification, the OH group of the carboxylic acid is replaced by an alkoxy group. Thus, the part of the molecule marked in blue comes from alcohol, and the part of the molecule marked in black comes from a carboxylic acid.

Name of the carboxylic acid

Carboxylic acids are named from the parent alkane by replacing -e and adding -oic.

The first step when naming an organic compound is to find the longest continuous carbon chain. The longest continuous carbon chain in this molecule has three atoms. Therefore, the parent alkane is propane.

We can also see that this molecule has a chlorine atom at position 2 , therefore we must add prefix 2 -chloro to the parent alkane name.

The last step is to change -e to -oic.

The name of a carboxylic acid is 2 -chloropropanoic acid.

Hence, the name of a carboxylic acid is 2 -chloropropanoic acid.