Where can I find the reaction that produces ethyl formate, which is Methanol and Methanoic acid?

Answer 1

I have looked on Google to find this but I've come up empty handed. Do you want the simple reaction, do you want the reaction mechanism, do you want the industrial production or some other facet of the production of ethyl formate. If you will be a little more specific I might be able to try some different key words. I think I wrote the simple reaction for you a couple days ago.
RCOOH + R'OH ==> RCOOR' + H2O. If this IS what you want and you just don't understand what I wrote, tell me specifically what you don't understand and perhaps I can elaborate.

Answer 2

This may be what Im after:)

Please elaborate in this reaction

Answer 3

We can't possibly remember the thousands of reactions and products but we CAN make some rules to follow that makes things a little simpler. R stands for everything in the molecule EXCEPT the functional group. Therefore, in the example, the functional group is COOH so R is H and HCOOH is the acid, methanoic acid in this case, or formic acid. Alcohols have the functional group of OH, so ROH stands for any alcohol with R being the remainder of the molecule that isn't the functional group. In the case of methanol, that is methyl alcohol or CH3OH. When writing a reaction we usually use R for one of the groups and we write R' when another R must be used to denote that R' and R don't need to be the same thing although they are sometimes.
So HCOOH + HOCH3 ==> HCOOCH3 + HOH is the reaction to produce the ester. Esters typically are made by reacting an acid and an alcohol. And the easy way to remember ALL of them is
RCOOH + HOR' ==> RCOOR' + HOH
I hope this helps. Surely you have gone over this in class. I thought the general formula two days ago would do it but apparently it didn't help. If I've made it too simple I apologize.