Ethyl acetate Fischer equilibrium mentioned above. In the laboratory, and usually for illustrative purposes only, ethyl esters are typically hydrolyzed in a two-step process starting with a stoichiometric amount of a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide. This reaction gives ethanol and sodium acetate, which is unreactive toward ethanol: The rate constant is 0.111 L/mol·s at 25 °C. The for rats is 5620 mg/kg, indicating low toxicity. Given that the chemical is naturally present in many organisms, there is little risk of toxicity. Overexposure to ethyl acetate may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. Severe overexposure may cause weakness, drowsiness,
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