Alcohols: Oxidation, Dehydration and Nucleophilic Substitution
Students will identify alcohols as a functional group, describe their general properties, and explore their common uses.
Key Questions
- Predict the products of oxidising primary, secondary, and tertiary alcohols under controlled versus excess acidified dichromate conditions, drawing full structural formulae and explaining why tertiary alcohols resist oxidation.
- Construct a full mechanism for the acid-catalysed dehydration of a secondary alcohol, identifying the carbocation intermediate and predicting the major alkene product using Zaitsev's rule.
- Compare the reactivity of alcohols, acyl chlorides, and carboxylic acids towards nucleophilic substitution reactions with the same nucleophile, explaining differences in terms of leaving-group ability and carbonyl electrophilicity.
MOE Syllabus Outcomes
Suggested Methodologies
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