@RichardCryberg You said (in part): " Also, oxalic acid will react very rapidly with alcohol make the ester and the ester will very rapidly decarboxylate at temps as low as 100 deg C to ethyl formate which is not going to kill mites." Can you provide a cite for this, please. The only ones I can find are similar to this: https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/68662/will-oxalic-acid-react-with-ethanol Will oxalic acid react with ethanol? <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/68662/will-oxalic-acid-react-with-ethanol> up vote2down votefavorite <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/68662/will-oxalic-acid-react-with-ethanol#> Will oxalic acid, in a saturated solution in ethanol, be able to undergo an esterification reaction with the ethanol? This is assuming no acidifying agents (or anything else, for that matter) are added, and room temperature is also assumed. I tried to find an equilibrium constant to predict the extent of such a reaction, but I couldn't seem to find anything. This suggests either that the reaction does not take place, or that it is so obscure that nobody has bothered to examine it. organic-chemistry <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/organic-chemistry> acid-base <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/acid-base> alcohols <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/alcohols> esters <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/esters> share <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/q/68662>improve this question <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/posts/68662/edit> asked Feb 16 at 22:42 <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/users/29678/marcel> Marcel <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/users/29678/marcel> 682323 I heard that someone put a lot of effort in finding kinetics of such reaction, but in case of acetic acid. Oxalic is stronger so reaction should be faster, but still not very fast. – Mithoron <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/users/9961/mithoron> Feb 16 at 22:57 <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/68662/will-oxalic-acid-react-with-ethanol#comment119429_68662> 1 Here <https://www.scribd.com/document/255144891/Eco-friendly-Esterification-of-Oxalic-Acid-With-Ethanol-Using-Mesoporous-MgAlPO4-Catalyst> is an article where they developed a catalyst for the esterification, suggesting it's probably not very fast without a catalysts...for whatever that's worth ;) – airhuff <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/users/39539/airhuff> Feb 16 at 23:01 <https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/68662/will-oxalic-acid-react-with-ethanol#comment119431_68662> *********************************************** The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
