Abstract The preparation and properties of ethyl acetate are important experimental activities in high school chemistry. Ethyl acetate is easily hydrolyzed under alkaline conditions, but its preparation is collected with an alkaline Na2CO3 solution, which easily causes confusion among students. Based on the Arduino platform, this paper designed digital experiments with simultaneous detection of multiple sensors to quantitatively compare the differences in the reactions of ethyl acetate with Na2CO3 and NaOH solutions, respectively, from multiple perspectives, and to explore the effects of temperature, concentration and stirring on the reactions, aiming to help teachers and students to deeply understand the differences in the interactions of ethyl acetate with Na2CO3 and NaOH. It was found that although it was spontaneous in chemical thermodynamics, there was almost no hydrolysis of ethyl acetate with saturated Na2CO3 solution at room temperature even stirring conditions, but it could occur at unsaturated Na2CO3 or higher reaction temperature, and it reacted strongly with NaOH solution no matter under what experimental conditions. Thus, based on digital experiments, sufficient evidence and reasons were provided for the use of saturated Na2CO3 solution at room temperature to collect ethyl acetate.
WEN Jia-Hui, XIAO Xin, LUO Xiu-Ling. Understanding the Differences in Ethyl Acetate Interactions with Sodium Carbonate and Sodium Hydroxide Through Digital Experiments[J]. Chinese Journal of Chemical Education, 2024, 45(9): 89-94.
