Kinetics of Alkaline Hydrolysis of Esters. III. Acyl Acetals

Abstract The kinetics of the alkaline hydrolysis of some acyl acetals (liquid and solid) was studied in 90 parts (wt/wt) aqueous ethanol medium. Steric and inductive effects were found to play an important role. A straight line relationship was observed between the rate constants for the alkaline hydrolysis of benzylidene-, and m- and p-nitrobenzylidene diacetates and Hammett’s substitution constant, σ. In the case of n-butylidene and benzylidene diacetates the theory of mass transfer accompanied by fast pseudo first-order reaction was employed for the determination of rate constants in an aqueous medium.