Comments on: Alcohols To Ethers via Acid Catalysis

By: James Ashenhurst

James Ashenhurst — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 19:59:19 +0000

In reply to Student. Yes - secondary alcohols work poorly in this process. With tertiary alcohols, there will be formation of a tertiary carbocation. This can be effective for mixed ether formation if a primary alcohol is also present.

By: James Ashenhurst

James Ashenhurst — Fri, 02 May 2025 20:28:27 +0000

In reply to Duong. What would happen in this case is significant amounts of ethanol converted to ethyl chloride.

By: Duong

Duong — Fri, 02 May 2025 15:48:02 +0000

If the concentrated sulfuric acid is replaced with anhydrous HCl, will the ether formation reaction occur?

By: John Griswold

John Griswold — Thu, 25 Jul 2024 19:13:49 +0000

Geez, I’m 70, and remember why I didn’t take Organic Chemistry 50 years ago…

By: Nav Dhiber

Nav Dhiber — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 18:44:32 +0000

I am a Physics major student and I had to study Organic chemistry as a side subject. It would be more useful if I could see the full structure of Reactants and Reaction instead of just Lewis structure. I am dumb at chemistry actually

By: Navjot Singh

Navjot Singh — Tue, 28 Dec 2021 18:41:28 +0000

I hope Elon was my uncle insted of Bob.

By: James Ashenhurst

James Ashenhurst — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 17:04:02 +0000

In reply to nikki. Possible, yes, it wouldn't be a very clean reaction due to competition with other pathways. One would obtain a lot of elimination and rearrangement through E1 pathways.

By: nikki

nikki — Sun, 08 Nov 2020 19:43:08 +0000

Would an Sn2 mechanism be possible if we heated a secondary alcohol?

By: Student

Student — Thu, 25 Jun 2020 10:09:05 +0000

If we use secondary or tertiary alcohol then it form alkene instead of ether does the reason for this is the formation of stable carbonation

By: James Ashenhurst

James Ashenhurst — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 21:26:28 +0000

In reply to student.

It has a full “formal charge”, but formal charge is not always a helpful gauge of electron density. Compare the electronegativities of O and H, and that will tell you where the electron density is. See this post: Watch Out, Formal Charge Can Mislead: https://www.masterorganicchemistry.com/2012/02/22/common-mistakes-formal-charges-can-mislead/