Oxidation of Ethanol
2 guided lessons · 18 checks · 4. Organic Chemistry → Alcohols
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Three routes that oxidise ethanol
Ethanol does not survive contact with oxygen untouched. This lesson walks the three routes that oxidise it: burning it as a fuel, letting airborne bacteria sour it, and handing it to a chemical oxidising agent. Each route ends at a different product, and telling them apart is exactly what the exam asks.
What you know already
From Alcohols you already know ethanol as the two-carbon member of the organic family, with its reactive -OH group sitting at the end of the chain. This note tracks what happens when that molecule meets oxygen: three separate routes that all carry ethanol towards the same acid.
Key points of understanding
- Alcohols burn in air to form carbon dioxide and water.
- Ethanol burns with an almost invisible blue flame, so laboratories use it in spirit burners.
- Airborne acetobacter bacteria use oxygen to turn the ethanol in open wine into ethanoic acid.
- Wine left open for days tastes acidic and vinegary because microbial action makes ethanoic acid.
- The microbial route is the same chemistry that produces the acid used in vinegar.
The complete combustion of ethanol is as follows:
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1.Three routes that oxidise ethanol
Ethanol does not survive contact with oxygen untouched. This lesson walks the three routes that oxidise it: burning it as a fuel, letting airborne bacteria sour it, and handing it to a chemical oxidising agent. Each route ends at a different product, and telling them apart is exactly what the exam asks.
The complete combustion of ethanol is as follows:
Key points
- Alcohols burn in air to form carbon dioxide and water.
- Ethanol burns with an almost invisible blue flame, so laboratories use it in spirit burners.
- Airborne acetobacter bacteria use oxygen to turn the ethanol in open wine into ethanoic acid.
Guided content from the SME authoring corpus — note rn_8T5GfPn2q7sY2YCh, pinned at 80afdb8e02b6 · promoted SyllabAI/syllabai-resources e967e75f1339
