Question

Ethyl butyrate is an artificial fruit flavor commonly used in the food industry for such flavors as orange and pineapple. It can be produced by the reaction of butanoic acid with ethanol in the presence of an acid catalyst.
i) Given 8.45g of butanoic acid and excess ethanol, how many grams of ethyl butyrate would be synthesized, assuming a complete 100 yield?
ii) A chemist ran the reaction and obtained 5.25 of ethyl butyrate. What was the percent yield?
iii) The chemist discovers a more efficient catalyst that can produce ethyl butyrate with a 78.0 yield. How many grams would be produced from 8.45 of butanoic acid and excess ethanol?

Answer 1

i)
Write and balance the reaction. I think the compounds are 1:1 ratio of mols.

Convert 8.45 g butanoic acid to mols. mol = grams/molar mass.

Use the coefficients in the balanced equation to convert mols butanoic acid to mols of the product. I believe mols butanoic acid = mols or the product.

Convert mols of the product to grams. g = mols x molar mass. This is the theoretical yield (TY)

ii)
Actual yield (AY) is 5.25 g from the problem.
%yield = (AY/TY)*100 = ?

iii)
Use the equation in ii to do this. Substitute and solve for AY.