Question

How will you convert the ethanol to acetic acid?

Answer 1

Hint: Ethyl alcohol or ethanol can be converted to acetic acid by the oxidation reaction. Oxidation means addition of oxygen to the compound or removal of hydrogen or removal of electrons from the compound. Acetic acid is also called ethanoic acid.

Complete step by step answer:
Oxidation of ethanol can be done by treating ethanol with oxidizing agents.
The oxidizing agents used for the oxidation of ethyl alcohol are alkaline potassium permanganate or acidic potassium dichromate.
The oxidation of ethanol involves a two-step process.
In the first step ethanol is going to convert into acetaldehyde. In this step removal of hydrogen from ethanol is going to happen and produces acetaldehyde as a product.
\[\underset{Ethanol}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-C{{H}_{2}}-OH}}\,\xrightarrow{{{K}_{2}}C{{r}_{2}}{{O}_{7}}}\underset{Acetaldehyde}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-CHO}}\,\]

In the second step acetaldehyde undergoes again oxidation and forms acetic acid or ethanoic acid as the product. In this step addition of oxygen to acetaldehyde is going to happen and produces acetic acid as the product.
\[\underset{Acetaldehyde}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-CHO}}\,\xrightarrow{{{K}_{2}}C{{r}_{2}}{{O}_{7}}}\underset{Acetic\text{ }acid}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-COOH}}\,\]

We can represent the step process in a single step in the following way.
\[\underset{Ethanol}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-C{{H}_{2}}-OH}}\,\xrightarrow{{{K}_{2}}C{{r}_{2}}{{O}_{7}}}\underset{Acetaldehyde}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-CHO}}\,\xrightarrow{{{K}_{2}}C{{r}_{2}}{{O}_{7}}}\underset{Acetic\text{ }acid}{\mathop{C{{H}_{3}}-COOH}}\,\]

Additional Information:
Conversion of ethanol to acetic acid occurs when bottles of wine are left open for a long time due to the oxidation.
Acetic acid reacts with metals and forms hydrogen as the product.
Acetic acid reacts with base and forms salts.
Acetic acid turns blue litmus paper to red litmus paper.

Note: Excess oxidizing agent is used to convert ethanol to acetic acid, if we minimum amount of oxidizing then ethanol converts into acetaldehyde only. Formation of acetaldehyde during the oxidation of ethanol can be easily identified by the sweet smell of acetaldehyde.