Caesium acetate or cesium acetate is an
ionic
caesium
Caesium (IUPAC spelling) (or cesium in American English) is a chemical element with the symbol Cs and atomic number 55. It is a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal with a melting point of , which makes it one of only five elemental metals that a ...
compound with the molecular formula CH
3COOCs. It is a white solid that may be formed by the reaction of
caesium hydroxide or
caesium carbonate with
acetic acid
Acetic acid , systematically named ethanoic acid , is an acidic, colourless liquid and organic compound with the chemical formula (also written as , , or ). Vinegar is at least 4% acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component ...
.
Uses
It is used in organic synthesis. One example is in the
Perkin synthesis
The Perkin reaction is an organic reaction developed by English chemist William Henry Perkin that is used to make cinnamic acids. It gives an α,β-unsaturated aromatic acid or α-substituted β-aryl acrylic acid by the aldol condensation of a ...
: the formation of
unsaturated cinnamic-type acids by the condensation of aromatic
aldehydes with
fatty acids. Replacement of the commonly used sodium acetate with caesium acetate has been shown to improve yields by up to 10 times.
[.]
It is often used to invert secondary alcohols, first by direct
SN2 substitution of the
hydroxyl group
In chemistry, a hydroxy or hydroxyl group is a functional group with the chemical formula and composed of one oxygen atom covalently bonded to one hydrogen atom. In organic chemistry, alcohols and carboxylic acids contain one or more hydroxy g ...
with acetate, which is then converted back to a hydroxyl group.
Caesium acetate is occasionally used instead of caesium formate in petroleum drilling fluids.
References
Further reading
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External links
Caesium acetate factsheet from Chemetall GmbH
{{Acetates
Caesium compounds
Acetates
Reagents for organic chemistry