Acid hydrolysis

Acid hydrolysis, in organic chemistry, usually refers to a process in which a protic acid is used to catalyze the cleavage of a chemical bond via a nucleophilic substitution reaction, with the addition of the elements of water (H2O). For example, in the conversion of cellulose or starch to glucose. For the case of esters and amides, it can be defined as an acid catalyzed nucleophilic acyl substitution reaction.

The term is also applied to certain nucleophilic addition reactions, such as in the acid catalyzed hydrolysis of nitriles to amides.

Acid hydrolysis does not usually refer to the acid catalyzed addition of the elements of water to double or triple bonds by electrophilic addition as may originate from a hydration reaction.

See also

References


    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, October 08, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.