How do you name hemiacetals?

Question

5576 views around the world

You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License

Answer 1 · 2015-11-23T19:39:46

There are two acceptable names for hemiacetals.

Consider the hemiacetal that is formed from butanal and ethanol:

#"CH"_3"CH"_2"CH"_2"CH"("OH")"OCH"_2"CH"_3#

You could name this as an alkoxy alcohol.

The name is then 1-ethoxybutan-1-ol.

Or you could name it using the class name "hemiacetal".

The name is then butanal ethyl hemiacetal.

Both names are acceptable.