Class 12 Chapter 11 Alcohols, Phenols and Ethers

INTRODUCTION

                   Alcohols and phenols are formed when a hydrogen atom in a hydrocarbon, both aliphatic and aromatic respectively, gets replaced by the –OH group. These classes of compounds find a huge number of applications in industry as well as in day-to-day life. For example, the ordinary spirit which we used for polishing wooden furniture is mainly a compound containing a hydroxyl group, ethanol. The sugar that we eat, the cotton which is used for fabrics, and the paper we use for writing, all these are made up of compounds containing –OH groups. Can we think of life without paper; no notebooks, books, newspapers, currency notes, cheques, certificates, etc? The magazines having beautiful photographs and interesting stories would disappear from our life. The world would become a very different place without paper. Alcohol contains one or more hydroxyl (OH) group(s) directly attached to a carbon atom(s), of an aliphatic system (CH₃OH) while a phenol contains –OH group(s) directly attached to carbon atom(s) of an aromatic system (C₆H₅OH). When a hydrogen atom in a hydrocarbon is substituted by an alkoxy or aryloxy group (R–O/Ar–O) we get another class of compounds known as ‘ethers’, for example, CH₃OCH₃ (dimethyl ether). In this unit, we shall discuss the chemistry of these three classes of compounds— alcohols, phenols and ethers.

CONTENT

Classification

Nomenclature

Structures of Functional Groups

Alcohols and Phenols

Some Commercially Important Alcohols

Ethers