Deduce Type of Organic Chemistry Reaction

Here's the question for this week:

We have to deduce the type of reaction for each stage since all these reactions are not in syllabus.

This can be done by comparing molecular/structural formula of the reactants and products in detail.

Let's consider this step by step.

Step 1 - Oxidation

Notice this step involves losing 2 hydrogen.

Hence this step is oxidation, which is the loss of hydrogen, gain of oxygen or increase in oxidation state.

Step 2 - Nucleophilic Addition

The reactants are ethanal (2 carbon) and ethanol (2 carbon) to form product with 4 carbons and 2 oxygen.

Therefore we can deduce oxygen in ethanol acts as a nucleophile and attacks carbonyl carbon in ethanal.

This results in an addition product, hence the type of reaction is nucleophilic addition.

Step 3 - Oxidation

This step is very similar to the first step where the reactant loses 2 hydrogen to form ester product.

Hence this step is oxidation.

Finally we can compare the options and determine the answer to this question is option B (nucleophilic addition).

Topic: Introduction to Organic Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, A Level Chemistry, Singapore

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