Iodine-catalyzed Synthesis Of Ester

Iodine-catalyzed transesterification reactions were studied using n-butanol and esters in the paper, The optimal reaction conditions were screened by the experiments of reaction conditions such as iodine amount, reaction time and temperature, the ratio of ester and alcohol in correlation with the yield of n-butyl acetate, it was disclosed that iodine was an efficient catalyst for transesterification reactions and the reaction activity decreased in the order of vinyl acetate, phenyl acetate, benzyl acetate, tert-butyl acetate, ethyl acetate, allyl acetate, ethyl propenate.The high activity of vinyl acetate may due to its hexacyclic transition state which composed by iodine, carbonyl and double carbon bond, and irreversible reaction which was arisen from vinyl alcohol as a transesterification product could convert into acetic aldehyde facilely. The high activity of benzyl acetate and phenyl acetate was probably related to that benzene ring and iodine make the ester bond breaking easily. The high activity of tert-butyl acetate may owe to the reaction irreversibility of tert-butanol decomposed on the condition of heating which breaks the Thermodynamic Equilibrium of transesterification reactions. These results clearly indicated that iodine catalyzed reactions were cheap and commercially available and proceeded facilely, mildly, cleanly, in high yields along with high chemo.