What does hydrolysis of an amide using an acid catalyst produce?

1 Answer
Yonas Yohannes
Mar 19, 2016

Hydrolysis under acidic conditions
Taking ethanamide as a typical amide. If ethanamide is heated with a dilute acid say hydrochloric acid, ethanoic acid is formed together with ammonium ions. So, if you were using hydrochloric acid, the final solution would contain ammonium chloride and ethanoic acid.
In general the hydrolysis of a primary amide forms a carboxylic acid and ammonia or amine.

#CH_3COcolor(red)(NH_2)+H_2O+Hcolor(brown)(Cl) rarr CH_3COcolor(blue)(OH)+color(red)(NH^+)color(brown)(4Cl^−) #

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