How can you synthesize primary alcohol?
1 Answer
There are a many ways of ways of synthesising a primary alcohol such as hydrolysis of an alkyl halide or the reaction of a Grignard reagent or alkyllithium with methanal or ethylene oxide.
Explanation:
The first way to form a primary alcohol is to react an alkyl halide with an aqueus solution of sodium or potassium hydroxide which reacts with the halide via an S_N2 mechanism to form a primary alcohol and the halogen forms a soution of an alkali metal salt solution.
Another method is the reaction of a source of a carbanion with a carbonyl group of methanal which undergoes nucleophilic attact at the carbonyl carbon of methanal formed by protonation during work up to form a primary alcohol. Another reagent that can react with a carbanion from a Grignard reagent or alkyllithium is ehtylene oxide. Both these reactions are forms of nucleophilic attack by carbanions and the first, hydrolysis of alkyl halides is nucleophilic substitution using the lone pair on a hydroxide anion in aqeus solution.
