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What do you mean by esterification?
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What do you mean by esterification?
If you were out playing basketball and rolled your ankle, you may take aspirin to relieve the pain and swelling. Aspirin relieves swelling and pain with a compound called salicylic acid, yet the carboxylic group in salicylic acid greatly irritates the stomach. Chemists discovered that if it is combined with acetic acid then it forms an ester, acetylsalicylic acid, which reduces the irritation on the stomach. This is the compound that we take as aspirin.
The reaction that combined the salicylic acid and acetic acid to form acetylsalicylic acid is called esterification. Esterification is the process of forming esters from carboxylic acids. An ester is when a carbon is connected to two oxygens, but one of the oxygens isn't connected to anything else (so it is double-bonded to the carbon), while the other oxygen is connected to another carbon. Here is the general formula for an ester ('R' refers to a carbon chain):



A carboxylic acid is very similar to an ester, except the second oxygen is not connected to another carbon; it is just connected to a hydrogen atom. An alcohol is a carbon that is connected to an -OH group (or oxygen connected to hydrogen).
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What do you mean by esterification?
Esters are produced when acids are heated with alcohols in a process called esterification.

An ester can be made by an esterification reaction of a carboxylic acid and an alcohol.

Esterification is a chemical reaction that forms at least one ester.

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What do you mean by esterification?
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