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"A chemist wishes to perform a Claisen condensation on ethyl acetate. 88 grams of ethyl acetate and 0.1g of NaOH are mixed together ." The yeild of product was low. What went wrong and what should be done to correct the problem. This was an old question

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@wormer
Too low a condensation temperature? Is this a schoolwork exercise?

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@sonhouse
It's a question taken from an old organic chemistry exam. You can Google the quote to find the source of this question.

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@wormer said
@sonhouse
It's a question taken from an old organic chemistry exam. You can Google the quote to find the source of this question.
So what exactly do you want with the post? This is undergraduate chemistry probably only of interest to a very small fraction of users. Some are advanced and most don't know what you are Talking About...

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@ponderable said
So what exactly do you want with the post? This is undergraduate chemistry probably only of interest to a very small fraction of users. Some are advanced and most don't know what you are Talking About...
The question itself is ambiguous. I wanted to see what kind of answers people would come up with

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The reason this question is unclear is because the professor answer was " not enough base, need more base" because the base is a reagent and not a catalyst. Problem is that the NaOH can soponify.....