[physstudent1]

I'm doing a question for my homework and we have to pick reagents to synthesize pentanol from a list given to us the correct answer is, 1-pentene , then HBr and peroxides, Mg Metal, formaldehyde, aqueous acid  the only things I don't understand is why can you use pentene I thought you would need to use petane all the mechanisms in my book are using alkanes not alkenes so i'm confused also what is the point of the peroxides ?

[azmanam]

1-pentene?  are you sure the answer's not 1-butene?  or the product hexanol?

Start here for the answer to both of your questions

http://www.cem.msu.edu/~reusch/VirtTxtJml/addene2.htm#add5

[physstudent1]

sorry! you are right it is 1-butene and thank you.

[physstudent1]

thank you that helped me I don't understand why they always give us problems on things we have no covered ( we have not covered reactivity of alkenes )

[azmanam]

If you haven't gotten to Grignard reactions yet, too, start here

http://www.cem.msu.edu/~reusch/VirtTxtJml/aldket1.htm#rx2b