Alcohols and Phenols are acidic in nature. Electron withdrawing groups in phenol increase its acidic strength

Question

Read the passage given below and answer the following questions :

Alcohols and Phenols are acidic in nature. Electron withdrawing groups in phenol increase its acidic strength and electron donating groups decrease it. Alcohols undergo nucleophilic substitution with hydrogen halides to give alkyl halides. On oxidation primary alcohols yield aldehydes with mild oxidising agents and carboxylic acids with strong oxidising agents while secondary alcohols yield ketones. The presence of -OH groups in phenols activates the ring towards electrophilic substitution. Various important products are obtained from phenol like salicylaldehyde, salicyclic acid,picric acid etc.

(1) Which of the following alcohols is resistant to oxidation?

(C) CH₃-CH₂-OH

(D) CH₃-OH

(2) Which of the following group increases the acidic character of phenol?

(A) CH₃O-

(B) CH₃-

(C) - NO₂-

(D) All of these

(3) Consider the following reaction :

the products X and Y are :

Answer 1

(1) Option : (A)

(CH₃)₃C-OH is a tertiary alcohol.

tertiary alcohols are resistant to oxidation because, the carbon atom that carries the OH group does not have a hydrogen atom attached but is instead bonded to other carbon atoms.

Therefore,

-3°- Alcohols are not easily oxidized.

(2) Option : (C) - NO₂-

- NO₂- is a strong electron withdrawing group. Acidity of phenol increases on increasing electron withdrawing power of group.

(3) Option : (D)