Alcohol such as CH3CH2OH reacts with sodium/potassium metal will form a product and H2 gas. What is the general name or a general term for that product mentioned above? How to name those products?

1 Answer
anor277
Apr 19, 2018

#"An alkali metal alkoxide...."#

Explanation:

And so we write the specific reaction:

#underbrace("H"_3C-CH_2OH(l))_"the alcohol"+Na(s) rarr underbrace(H_3C-CH_2O^(-)Na^+)_"the sodium alkoxide"+1/2H_2(g)uarr#

And so we gots #"sodium ethoxide"# and half an equiv. of #"dihydrogen gas"#..

The salt of any alcohol, methanol, butanol, is an alkoxide, this methoxide, or butoxide. The potassium salt of #"tert-butanol"#, i.e. #Bu^(t)O^(-)K^+#, is commonly used in organic and inorganic synthesis, and thus is #"potassium tert-butoxide"#.

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