Why is water more acidic than alcohol?

Posted byAnkush SharmaPosted inchemistryTags:, , , , , , , , ,

THE ANSWER CAN BE UNDERSTOOD EASILY BY LOOKING AT THE FOLLOWING POINTS:-

1. In case of alcohol the Oxygen atom is joined to the alkyl group on one side and hydrogen atom on the other side, being electron releasing in nature the alkyl group increase the electron density on Oxygen atom , thus making it less acidic.

2. +I effect: Positive inductive effect is shown by the electron releasing group makes the oxygen electron rich , making it difficult for oxygen to release H+ ion.

3. On the other hand in case of water there are hydrogens on the both sides of the Oxygen atom. As a result of this the Oxygen atom is able to release the H+ ion easily as shown below :-

H2O  ———>  H+ + OH–

Published by Ankush Sharma

I am M.Sc (chemistry ) from Punjabi University Patiala. I am a science teacher with expertise in chemistry, with 8 years of experience in teaching. Writing and blogging is my hobby, I write whenever I am free. I am constantly working on creating a new and easy way of learning the tough things in an effective way. I am constantly working to make authentic and reliable information to be shared with my students and widen the horizons of knowledge.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: