What is decarboxylation? How is it used in everyday life?

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What is decarboxylation? How is it used in everyday life?

A chemical reaction is a reaction where one or more reactants are converted chemically into one or more different products and the reactants can either be elements or compounds. It involves the rearrangement of constituentatoms belonging to the reactants, thereby producing different substances called the products. These chemical reactions play a very important role in the technology field and various other fields and even in our day-to-day lives. For example, burning fuels involves chemical reactions, another one is the smelting of iron, chemical reactions are also involved in the making of glasses and potteries, brewing of beer is another example, making of wine, cheese, and many others. Many chemical reactions have been used for thousands of years that are responsible for the very existence of mankind on earth. Chemical reactions take place in the Earth’s geology, in the oceans, Earth’s atmosphere, and in various complicated processes apart from the naturally occurring ones.Chemical reactions exist in almost all living systems.Chemical reactions vary from physical changes that involve changing in states, like for example changing of ice to water (melting), evaporation of water to form vapors. Ina physical change, there is an alteration in the physical properties of a substance, however, the chemical properties stay the same.Whatever be the physical change in the state, the compound will always remain the same. Like for example water changes to ice and water changes to vapors but the compound (H2O) remains the same where a molecule of it is still composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. However, when water either in the solid or liquid state when reacts with some metals, say Na (sodium), the atoms get redistributed giving new products i.e., H2 which is molecular hydrogen, and NaOH i.e., sodium hydroxide. With this, we get to know a chemical reaction.

Many chemical reactions serve different purposes for various applications. The one which we will discuss here is the decarboxylation chemical reaction. This is one of the chemical reactions that involve the removal of a carboxyl group along with the release of CO2 (carbon dioxide). This term is usually used for a reaction of the carboxylic acids whereby a carbon atom is being removed from the chain. This involves the removal of a carboxyl group (-COOH) and is being replaced by a hydrogen atom. The reaction involves in decarboxylation is given below:

RCOOH RH + CO2

This chemical reaction is one of the oldest reactions known and it is an organic reaction. Decarboxylation is assumed or believed to be accompanying pyrolysis as well as destructive distillation. Metal salts, especially compounds of copper fasten up the chemical reaction through a metal carboxylate complex intermediary. The decarboxylation process of aryl carboxylates usually generatesan equivalent of an aryl anion correspondingly which then later undergo reactions well-known as cross-coupling reactions. The reverse of this reaction is known as carboxylation. An example of this is the first step in the process of photosynthesis which involves the addition of CO2 to a compound.

Many decarboxylation processes have been named. They are as follows:

  1. Barton decarboxylation
  2. Kolbe electrolysis
  3. Kochi reaction
  4. Hunsdiecker reaction.

The chemical reactions above are all radical reactions. The decarboxylation that is related to an ester decarboxylation is the Krapcho decarboxylation. Another reaction i.e., the  Tsuji–Trost involves an allyl complexintermediacy.

The decarboxylation reaction is pervasive in the field of biochemistry. There is a term called Cannabis decarboxylation that plays a major role in the activation of the psychoactive compounds that are present in hemp plants and cannabis.

Another term related to decarboxylation is Hydro-decarboxylation where carboxylic acid is converted to a corresponding hydrocarbon. The concept behind this is the same as that of the general decarboxylation term except for the fact that the carboxyl group is replaced by hydrogen., as expected, replaced by hydrogen.

Mechanism

The mechanism involves the replacement of the carboxyl group in a carboxylic acid with hydrogen. The facilitation of the reaction is done by enzymes commonly known as the decarboxylases or carboxy-lyases. Soda-lime (mixture of caustic soda and quick lime) is the main regent that helps with the reaction. The three steps involved are:

  • First is the removal of a hydrogen ion from the carboxylic acid followed by Na addition. In this step, the sodium salt belonging to the carboxylic acid and H2O molecule was released.
  • Secondly, a charge which is negative obtained from oxygen is in between the C-O bond. Hence there is a breakage of the bond between the alkyl group and carbon and CO2 is released in this step.
  • Thirdly the H2O generated in step 1 gives a proton ion which combines with an alkyl group givingan alkane.

Uses of Decarboxylation

It is used for the formation of methane.

It is also used for the formation of amine by decarboxylation of amino acid

In biology, it is used in activating cannabinoids present in trim, buds, leaves.

Refer: Aldehydes, Ketones And Carboxylic Acids from Class 12 Chemistry – Find All the Questions & Answers

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