Acid hydrolysis of ethyl acetate

The hydrolysis of ethyl acetate in presence of concentrated HCl is represented as:

	H+
Ethyl acetate + Water	→	Acetic acid + Ethanol

Here, HCl merely acts as a catalyst and its concentration remains constant throughout the reaction. Also, water is present in excess therefore practically the concentration of water doesnt change.The reaction can be treated as first order with respect to ethyl acetate.

rate of the reaction = k[ethyl acetate]

Although this reaction is reversible, but we can achive practically the completion by using large excess of water which shifts the reaction to the right.