Why does saponification produce sodium lactate (and not lactic acid) as the final product? ?

Explanation:

Hello,

Saponification chemical reactions are defined as such reactions between either potassium hydroxide or sodium hydroxide and a fatty acid to break  hydroxiles in order to attach sodium or potassium to the organic chain. They are a type of esterification chemical reaction.

In this case, lactic acid reacts with sodium hydroxide as shown below:

As it is seen, sodium lactate is produced rather than lactic acid due to the easiness that the hydroxile has to break and to subsequently attract the ionized sodium to form the lactate, even do, free sodium cations easily break the hydroxile and form sodium lactate.

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answer: enthalpy

explanation:

for a exothermic reaction, the energy is released i.e. the energy of the products is lower than the energy of the reactants.

= enthaply

= energy of products

= energy of reactants

as , thus comes out to be negative. negative value of enthalpy shows that the reaction is exothermic.

the answer is a and have a great day