Why Esters are Immiscible in Water

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Have you ever tried mixing water and oil? You will notice that they never mix because oil is an example of a functional group in organic chemistry called esters. Esters and water exhibit a property called immiscibility. This means that they never mix with each other. Instead, they just form two separate layers of purely oil and purely water. The reason why this happens can be attributed to the properties of esters, one of which is being immiscible.

Properties of Esters

Esters are chemical compounds that are formed when an alcohol and an acid are condensed and water is eliminated. In organic chemistry, the functional group of esters is described as a carbon bounded to three other atoms. Esters are also characterized by their sweet-smelling scents. Not all esters are immiscible with water. There are some esters which are miscible with water such as ethyl acetate and methyl butanoate. These esters are miscible in water because they have short chain length. Fats and oils; however, have relatively longer chain lengths, thus, making them immiscible in water. For esters, the longer the chain lengths, the more immiscible they become in water.

Based on the general structure of esters, they are moderately polar, with dipole moments in the 1.5 to 2.0-D range. They can participate in hydrogen bonds with substances that contain hydroxyl groups, which confers some measure of water solubility on low-molecular-weight esters. Although they are polar, their polarity is not enough for them to dissolve in water; hence, they separate as a non-polar layer which makes them immiscible. It is not all the time that esters such as fats and oils float above water. The ester layer can either sink or float, and this depends on the density of the ester relative to the density of water.

Author: charles

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