Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Alcohols -Reaction with active metals - acidic character

Alcohols are weakly acidic in nature.

They react with active metals such as sodium, potassium, magnesium, aluminium, etc. to liberate hydrogen gas and form metal alkoxide.

Liberation of hydrogen shows that alcohols are acidic in nature.

The acidic nature of alcohols is due to the presence of polar O-H bond.

As oxygen withdraws shared electron pair between O and H atoms towards itself, it can lose the proton (H+).

However, alcohols are weak acids

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