What are primary and secondary alcohols?

1 Answer
reudhreghs
Apr 16, 2016

Primary alcohols have a hydroxyl on their end, while in secondary alcohols the hydroxyl is somewhere along the carbon chain's length.

Explanation:

Primary alcohols are where the hydroxyl (#-OH#) group is attached to the first carbon, so includes a #-CH_2OH# group. The alkyl here is only attached to one other alkyl group, shown below

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/introduction-to-chemistry-general-organic-and-biological/s17-02-alcohols-nomenclature-and-clas.html

Secondary alcohols are where the hydroxyl is attached to an alkyl that is attached to more than one other alkyl, so includes the group #-CHROH#, where #R# is some other alkyl group. This looks like

http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/introduction-to-chemistry-general-organic-and-biological/s17-02-alcohols-nomenclature-and-clas.html

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