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Topic: A lot of questions about "Propanol"  (Read 5357 times)

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Offline rosed

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A lot of questions about "Propanol"
« on: December 09, 2006, 04:13:32 PM »
Alright. I have to make a ball and stick model on the molecule Propanol. I also have to do a booklet with information on it as well.

So first of all, does anyone know if it is Polar or Non-Polar? Propanol has a Polar and a Non-Polar end, the NP end being OH. It's chemical formula is C3H8O.

Here's a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propan-1-ol

Another question that I have is what type of shape it has. Eg. Tetrahedral, Bent, etc. Now, most of the molecule has a Tetrahedral shape, but the OH part has a Bent shape.

Can anyone help me with this, and try to get me as much information on Propanol as possible?

Offline Yggdrasil

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Re: A lot of questions about "Propanol"
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2006, 06:10:03 PM »
All the information you have on propanol is correct.  Polar/non-polar is not a black and white distinction; there are areas of grey between polar and non-polar.  Propanol can be considered polar because of its OH group, but it also has a sizable non-polar alkane region.  So in terms of polarity, it's less polar than water, but more polar than a lot of other organics like dichloromethane or hexane.

As for the geometry, you are also correct.  The carbons will have a tetrahedral geometry about them while the oxygen will have a bent geometry.

Offline lemonoman

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Re: A lot of questions about "Propanol"
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2006, 07:38:35 PM »
So first of all, does anyone know if it is Polar or Non-Polar? Propanol has a Polar and a Non-Polar end, the NP end being OH. It's chemical formula is C3H8O.

All the information you have on propanol is correct.

Not quite...Let's just be clear that the OH is what make it polar...the OTHER end of the molecule is the non-polar part...

Generally compounds made of just C and H are non-polar, and if you have O, N, F, Cl, stuff like that in there...then polarity may or may not be a factor.  In this case, the OH is on one end of the molecule, and there's nothing to 'balance out the polarity' at the other end of the molecule....so overall, the molecule is polar.

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