Preparation of Butanol from Butene

There are a few ways to make alcohols:

• fermentation of sugars
• synthesis gas
• hydration of alkenes

We looked at the hydration of 1-butene using dilute sulfuric acid:

Isomers of Pentanol

We had to try to make and name as many isomers of pentanol as we could (using molecular models):

Some of the numbering in these is redundant, but it is a good habit to include them at this stage.

The Structure of Alcohols

The structure of alcohols tells us a lot about their physical properties and chemical reactions. This lesson was about the different isomers of C₄H₉OH, with the students starting by trying to make (and name) all of the ones that contain the alcohol functional group.

EXTENSION (not covered in Level 2, but worth seeing if you disagree about your structures of 2-butanol you made in class)

Reactions of Alkenes

This content will be covered over the rest of the week, so this post will be updated regularly.

Here is an introduction to two of the most simple reactions of alkenes: combustion and addition:

The first task we started with today was to draw and name as many isomers of C₆H₁₂ as possible...this was tough!! According to the internet, there are over 20!!

Then, we were taught about oxidation and polymerisation:

Alkenes - Introduction

Alkenes are unsaturated hydrocarbons. The functional group is a C=C bond (double bond). This lesson was based around the isomers and nomenclature of alkenes:

Here is the activity we started with that shows alkenes have the same general formula as cyclic alkanes:

Here is the activity we did at the start on Monday's lesson...just a little tougher:

Reactions of Alkanes

We were shown a couple of simple reactions of alkanes: combustion and substitution.

Then we had to do balanced equations for these and learn about "cracking":

Alkanes - Introduction to Organic Chemistry

I'm not a fan of teaching this topic the way Beginning Chemistry does. I prefer to "get into it" with the functional groups and cover types of reactions, nomenclature and isomerism over and over again, in context. So, we jumped straight into using MolyMods to make as many isomers of C₅H₁₂ as possible.

Here are the questions we tried at the start of the next lesson: