What is N-Butyl Acetate used for?

What is N-Butyl Acetate used for?

Butyl acetate is a clear-liquid chemical used in various manufacturing industries. Read this ScienceStruck article to know a lot more about its properties and various uses.

Did You Know?
Butyl acetate becomes toxic at high concentrations of more than 950 mg/m³.

Butyl acetate is an organic compound which occurs naturally in food products. However, it can also be produced chemically. It is commonly used as a solvent in the production of lacquers and paints. It is a colorless liquid with a low viscosity, having a sweet banana-like odor. This liquid is volatile but flammable in nature.

Butyl Acetate Chemical Structure

Formation

Butyl acetate is a type of an ester; a substance formed by the reaction between an acid and an alcohol along with the elimination of water. In this case, the reaction is between acetic acid and butyl alcohol.

Butyl acetate has four isomers: isobutyl acetate, sec-butyl acetate, tert-butyl acetate, and n-butyl acetate. An isomer is a compound that exists in forms having different arrangements of atoms, but the same molecular weight. The following table provides information regarding the properties of all four isomers of butyl acetate.