Chapter 7: Carboxylic Acid and Derivatives

Carboxylic acid is the type of compound that contains a carboxyl group (COOH, or CO2H). Not only carboxylic acid is important in chemistry and biochemistry, but it is also the parent structure of a large family of related compounds called carboxylic acid derivatives. Carboxylic acid derivatives have similar structures to carboxylic acid (as shown in Fig. 7a), and also share a common pattern in terms of chemical reactivities. The properties and reactions of carboxylic acid and derivatives are the topics of discussion for this chapter.

Nitriles are compounds that contain a C≡N group, called “cyano”. They are also considered carboxylic acid derivatives, although the structures do not match the general structure, since they can be converted to carboxylic acids by hydrolysis (section 7.2.3).