Alcohols

INTRODUCTION

The structure of alcohols tells us a lot about their physical properties and chemical reactions. Last year, the first lesson was about the different isomers of C₄H₉OH, with the students starting by trying to make (and name) all of the ones that contain the alcohol functional group. Can you name these?

PREPARATION

There are a few ways to make alcohols:

• fermentation of sugars
• synthesis gas
• hydration of alkenes

We looked at the hydration of 1-butene using dilute sulfuric acid:

REACTIONS

In this topic, we will do some experiments with primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols. Here are some videos explaining some of the expected observations and how to use them to identify/classify alcohols.