Procedure To Reduced Methyl Acetoacetate

We performed two procedures in which we reduced methyl acetoacetate. For the first procedure we produced a racemic mixture of Methyl (S)-3-Hydroxyacetate and Methyl (R)-3-Hydroxyacetate. For the second we produced only one of the enantiomer products depending on which enantiomer of Tartaric Acid was used.
A reduction is a reaction which generally means adding more carbon-hydrogen bonds to a compound. In a reduction reaction the oxidation number of a carbon atom decreases. The opposite is an oxidation reaction in which the carbon atom oxidation number increases. In compounds with double or triple bonds a reduction reaction can occur by adding hydrogen atoms across the pi-bond. This can change an unsaturated compound to a saturated compound. Saturated means that the compound has the maximum amount of hydrogen bonds with no double or triple bonds in the compound while unsaturated means that more hydrogen bonds could be added and there could be a double or triple bond in the compound. The reduction of
One is called catalytic hydrogenation which can be used to reduce pi bonds in many functional groups. This is achieved by adding dihydrogen along with a metal catalyst (e.g. Nickel, platinum, palladium, or rhodium) to a compound with a double or triple bond. The metal catalysts have different properties and there are different functional groups that each can reduce. Catalytic hydrogenation is the preferred method for reducing alkenes and alkynes. When you perform catalytic hydrogenation on alkenes the reaction is called an addition reaction. Addition reactions are when a reagent is added to the two carbons making up a pi-bond. In catalytic hydrogenation, the reagent is dihydrogen and it adds to the two carbons of the pi-bond on one side. When a reagent adds to only one side of a pi-bond it is called syn-addition. This is a stereoselective reaction because only one stereoisomer is produced out of several