Friday, September 23, 2011

Week 23 of 52: Hydration

I was about to write a post about the addition of water to alkynes, but I just realized that apparently I've yet to write one on addition of water to alkenes. This oversight on my part is unforgivable and you should berate me for it. Too late, as by the time you read this I will have already corrected my error in the form of a new post, this very post, in fact.

Hydration of an alkene is a specific case of an addition reaction. Unlike with hydrohalogenation, water does not itself provide a strong acid to attack the alkene. So we use sulfuric acid. Problem solved! The product is, of course, an alcohol.

The lone hydrogen tends to add to the less substituted carbon. The hydroxyl group adds to the other carbon. This is in accordance with something called Markovnikov's rule. But I have not explained this. How negligent of me.

No comments:

Post a Comment