University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Pharmacy Organic Chemistry - Laboratory

CLASSIFICATION TESTS FOR CARBOXYLIC ACIDS AND DERIVATIVES

31 Montenegro, Francesca Isabel P., 32 Padilla, Roy Antonio L., 33 Paguio, Christine C., 34 Panizales, Beryl Jane C. Group Seven, 2A-Ph, Faculty of Pharmacy, UST

Abstract The study ai med to classify the different sample compounds according to the four classification tests conducted. The classification tests used were Hydrolysis, Aminolysis: Anilide Formation, Alcoholysis: Schotten-Baumann Reaction, and Hydroxamic Acid Test. While the samples used were Acetyl Chloride, Acetic Anhydride, Benzami de and Acetamide, and Ethyl Acetate. Each classification test was done separately from the others and used specific compounds from the given samples to be experimented on. Introduction Carboxylic acids and their derivatives are the most abundant of all organic compounds in living organisms and in laboratory. The most common derivatives of carboxylic acids are acyl halides, acid anhydrides, esters, and amides. They contain acyl group attached to a nucleophilic molecule that replaced the -OH group of a carboxylic acid. Carboxylic acids and their derivatives are involved in many industrial processes and most biological pathways . Acyl halides are used as a starting material for synthesis due to its reactivity. Amides, like acids and esters, are abundant in living organisms- proteins, nucleic acids, and many pharmaceuticals have amide functional group. All carboxylic acid derivatives yield the parent carboxylic acid upon reaction with water. Furthermore, one derivative can be converted into another, provided the former is more reactive than the latter (3). Carboxylic acid derivatives react with the same mechanism the nucleophile attacks the carbonyl carbon, forming an unstable tetrahedral intermediate, which modifies a carboxylic acid derivative by eliminating the weakest base. The types of nucleophilic acyl substitution that a carboxylic acid derivative undergoes are hydrolysis, aminolysis and alcoholysis The objective of this experiment is to differentiate the reactivities of carboxylic acid derivatives and to distinguish it using classification tests. It also aimed to explain through chemical equation and mechanisms the reactions involved in each tests.