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Chemistry Forums for Students => Organic Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: ktreleaven on January 02, 2018, 08:53:11 PM

Title: Dehydrating an acid?
Post by: ktreleaven on January 02, 2018, 08:53:11 PM

For a design project, I need to figure out how to form maleic anhydride from malate.

As I am an engineering student and not a chemistry student, I'm having some trouble figuring this out. From what I've found:

Step 1: oxidize malate (C_4 H_4 O_5^(-2)) to oxaloacetate
Step 2: hydrogenate oxaloacetate (C_4 H_4 O_5) to malic acid (C_4 H_6 O_5)
Step 3: dehydrate malic acid to maleic acid (C_4 H_4 O_4)
Step 4: dehydrate maleic acid to maleic anhydride (C_4 H_2 O_3)

I'm not sure if this is correct... But if it is, I'm wondering how to perform dehydration reactions? Most of what I've found online is dehydration of alcohols, but nothing seems to give an actual explanation of how to perform the reaction (is it heating?). Any information at all that anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated!!

Title: Re: Dehydrating an acid?
Post by: zarhym on January 03, 2018, 02:33:10 AM

Mix your starting material and conc. sulfuric acid and then distillate out your product. You starting material will lose two molecules in this process. one for the alkene, the other one for the anhydride.