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Lactone

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lactones are named for lactide, a lactone dimer of lactic acid.

A lactone is a type of organic compound. A chemical is a lactone if it has a ring of atoms (it is cyclic) including an ester group (an oxygen atom next to a carbonyl). A structural systematic name of this group (without any other groups attached) is 1-oxacycloalkan-2-one.[1]

The name "lactone" comes from the chemical now called lactide. Lactide was made from distillation of lactic acid, like acetone was made from acetic acid, so it was called "lactone".[2] The name was later used to mean anything with the cyclic ester structure.

  1. | IUPAC, Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. (the "Gold Book") (2025). Online version: (2006-) "lactones". doi:10.1351/goldbook.L03439
  2. | Pelouze, J. (9 December 1844). "Memoire sur l'acide lactique" [Memoir on lactic acid]. Comptes rendus (in French). 19: 1219-1227. From p. 1223: "Independamment de la lactide dont je viens de rappeler l'existence dans les produits de la distllation de l'acide lactique, celui-ci donne encore, par sa decomposition, une autre substance, que je propose d'appeler lactone, parce qu'elle me parait etre a l'acide lactique ce que l'acetone est a l'acide acetique." (Independently of the lactide of which I have just recalled the existence in the products of the distillation of lactic acid, this [i.e., lactic acid] gives further, by its decomposition, another substance, which I propose to call lactone, because it seems to me to be to lactic acid what acetone is to acetic acid.)