Ethyl butyrate, CH3CH2CH2CO2CH2CH3, is an artificial fruit flavor commonly used in the food industry for such flavors as orange and pineapple.

Question

Ethyl butyrate, CH₃CH₂CH₂CO₂CH₂CH₃, is an artificial fruit flavor commonly used in the food industry for such flavors as orange and pineapple. Its fragrance and taste are often associated with fresh orange juice, and thus it is most commonly used as orange flavoring.

It can be produced by the reaction of butanoic acid with ethanol in the presence of an acid catalyst (H⁺):

CH₃CH₂CH₂CO₂H(l) + CH₂CH₃OH(l) ⟶ CH₃CH₂CH₂CO₂CH₂CH₃(l) + H₂O(l)

Now lets say that you discover a more efficient catalyst that can produce ethyl butyrate with a 95 % yield. How many grams of ethyl butyrate would be produced from 16.46 g of butanoic acid and excess ethanol?

Answer 1

16.49 g butanoic acid x 1mole/88 g butanoic acid x 1 mole ethyl butyrate/1mole butanoic acid x 126 g ethyl butyrate/1 mole ethyl butyrate = 23.57 g of ethyl butyrate

This is the theoretical yield

% yield = (actual yield/theoretical yield) x 100

95 = (actual/23.57) x 100

actual = 22.39 g