Ethyl lactate is also used as solvent for nitrocellulose, cellulose acetate, and cellulose ethers. Ethyl lactate hydrolyzes in the presence of water and acids or bases into lactic acid and ethanol. Ethyl lactate can be used as a cosolvent to produce suitable conditions for the formation of aryl aldimines. Ethyl lactate Ethyl lactate, also known as lactic acid ethyl ester, is a monobasic ester formed from lactic acid and ethanol, commonly used as a solvent. This compound is considered biodegradable and can be used as a water-rinsible degreaser. Ethyl lactate is found naturally in small quantities in a wide variety of foods
2-Ethyl-2-oxazoline dehydration of the N-(2-hydroxyethyl)propionamide in vacuo in the presence of iron(III)chloride, which delivers the product in 90% yield. An even higher yield of 96.2% is obtained by heating with zinc acetate. An economic one-pot reaction is heating the salt of propionic acid with ethanolamine at 200 °C in vacuo in the presence of zinc chloride yielding 82% 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline. From the water-containing distillate pure 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline can be isolated by extraction with diethylbenzene and subsequent distillation or by distillation only after addition of diethyl phosphite or dimethyldichlorosilane. The product can be dried to a residual water content of 10 ppm. In another