Template talk:Esters

"Esters" is far too broad of a type of organic molecule. Not only are there carboxylate esters (as in this template), but also mineral acid esters. Plus, it was an arbitrary choice to sort by alkyl group instead of carboxylate group. the navbox template doesn't allow two separate columns. I think this template should be removed from all pages, and replaced with a link to an article such as List of esters or List of carboxylate esters, which will allow for better directory. MDaxo (talk) 08:03, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it appears designed to focus on carboxylate esters. That could be documented, maybe by simply renaming the template to that. The organization is also a problem. What if it were instead a grid, with the alkyls on one axis and the acyls on the other? If we keep this, it seems like a lot of entries are missing. Making it a grid would help emphasize what items are missing, either to add their links or possibly to write them if we don't have an article yet. DMacks (talk) 04:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Something like Template:Esters/draft. But it still needs a defined scope. We don't seem to have too many simple cycloalkyl or cycloalkanoate esters where the two side-groups do not have any heteroatoms, with the exception of a few menthyls. What about other unsaturated (vinyl, allyl, etc.; acrylate, etc.)? What about aromatic (benzyl/benzoate already included in the current, that's probably all we have in article-space)? One criterion that is simple and would keep this table manageable might be "hydrocarbons only" (other than the ester unit itself). DMacks (talk) 07:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The ideas being floated above are good. Articles:

• list of carboxylate esters and we'd aim to represent the various structural motifs. I dont think that we want the list to be unrestricted because it could be tens of thousands of entries, which damages readability. Maybe also
  • acetate esters Me, Et, Pr, Bu... many are used
  • propionate esters Me, Et, Pr, Bu... many are used
  • butyrate esters Me, Et, Pr, Bu... many are used
  • valerate esters
  • benzoate esters? and a few more. These articles also would not accept indiscriminate entries.
• esters, which describes and {{main|carboxylate esters}} the things that formally are esters but often are overlooked (sulfate and phosphate esters)
• carboxylate esters as we kinda have but without the list and without the inorganicky entries.

In the older literature, one can encounter all kinds of stuff called esters. --Smokefoot (talk) 17:49, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]