The Equilibrium Constant of an Ester Hydrolysis Reaction

Abstract

The first step in determining the equilibrium constant of an ester hydrolysis

reaction is to prepare five different reaction mixtures with the volume given in

Table 1. the bottles have different mixtures of HCl, H2O, an unknown ester, and

one bottle has alcohol. We will later determine the equilibrium constant for the

reaction between the unknown ester and water to produce an unknown alcohol,

and unknown acid. Once the bottles were shooken vigorusly we stored them in

our drawer until chemical equilibrium was reached, which took about two weeks.

We were then to make a base solution of 0.7 M NaOH. In order to standardize

this solution we had to weigh out 5g of KHP, which is the amount needed to

neutralize 35ml of our base. Once we weighed out the KHP we then dissolved it

in 50 ml of water...