Alcohols and Phenols

Alcohols and Phenols

With the structure, classification and nomenclature of alcohols, phenols and ethers already in place, attention now turns to how alcohols and phenols actually behave as compounds. Both share the same functional group — a hydroxyl (–OH) attached either to an sp³ alkyl carbon (alcohols) or directly to an sp² carbon of an aromatic ring (phenols) — and this single group is what drives almost everything discussed next.

The material ahead is organised into three stages:

• Preparation — how alcohols are built up from alkenes, from carbonyl compounds (aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids and esters), and from Grignard reagents, and how phenols are obtained from haloarenes, benzenesulphonic acid, diazonium salts, and — industrially — from cumene.
• Physical properties — how hydrogen bonding through the –OH group governs boiling point, solubility and other observable behaviour, and why alcohols and phenols stand apart from hydrocarbons and ethers of comparable size.
• Chemical reactions — the reactivity that follows from the O–H bond itself and, in phenols, from the way the –OH group is conjugated with the aromatic ring. …