Naming Alcohols and Phenols

Interactive to use a web-based palette to draw structures of alcohols based on their lUPAC 

Alcohols are classified as primary (1°), secondary (2°), or tertiary (3°), depending on the number of organic groups bonded to the hydroxyl-bearing carbon. 

A primary (1°) alcohol A secondary (2 ) alcohol A tertiary (3 ) alcohol 

Simple alcohols are named by the lUPAC system as derivatives of the parent alkane, using the suffix -ol. 

Rule 1 Select the longest carbon chain containing the hydroxyl group, and derive the parent name by replacing the -e ending of the corresponding alkane with -ol. The -c is deleted to prevent the occurrence of two adjacent vowels propanol rather than propaneol, for example. 

Rule2 Number the alkane chain beginning at the end nearer Ihe hydroxyl group. 

Ethanol for industrial use as a solvent or chemical intermediate is largely obtained by acid-catalyzed hydration of ethylene at high temperature. 

Phenols occur widely throughout nature and also serve as intermediates in the industrial synthesis of products as diverse as adhesives and antiseptics. Phenol itself is a general disinfectant found in coal tar methyl salicylate is a flavoring agent found in oil of wintergreen and the umshiols are the allergenic constituents of poison oak and poison ivy. Note that the word phenol is the name both of the specihc compound (hydroxybenzene) and of a class of compounds. 

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Resonance stabilization accounts for why carboxylic acids are more acidic than other compounds with O-H bonds—namely, alcohols and phenols. For example, the pATa values of ethanol (CH3CH2OH) and phenol (CeHsOH) are 16 and 10, respeetively, both higher than the pATa of acetie aeid (4.8). 

New Core Chemistry Skills are added Identifying Functional Groups (12.1), Naming Alcohols and Phenols (12.1), Naming Aldehydes and Ketones (12.3), and Writing Equations for the Dehydration and Oxidation of Alcohols (12.4). 

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