High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sodium ethoxide is an alkoxide salt with the chemical formula C2H5ONa.It is commercially available as a dry yellow solid, or as a solution in ethanol.Sodium ethoxide is commonly used in the Claisen condensation and malonic ester synthesis, if an ethyl ester is one of the reactants. Sodium ethoxide may either deprotonate the -position of the ester, or the ester may undergo nucleophilic substitution. If the starting material is an ethyl ester, no scrambling may occur since the product is identical to the starting material.