Question

Describe the acid-catalyzed second slow step in the hydrolysis of an ester.

Answer 1

Answer:

Described in the explanation with image attached.

Explanation:

Let's talk about what happens in the first step before we highlight the second step;

In the first step, the ester would take a positive hydrogen ion from the hydroxonium ion and thus the hydrogen ion will become attached to one of the lone pairs on the oxygen that is double - bonded to the carbon.

That process leads to the second step which involves an attack on the carbon.

I have attached the structure that shows the positive charge on that carbon.

From the attached image, we see that the positive charge on the carbon atom is attacked by one of the two lone pairs of the oxygen from a water molecule.

Now, what i did was that I made oxygen to carry the positive charge on the right-hand side because there will have to be a positive charge somewhere since we had one attached to C at the beginning. So I put the positive charge on that oxygen because it has 3 bonds attached to it directly.