[Kari]

I've begun work into looking at spectra's on my course and I'm having difficultly understanding how to explain them. I have an example piece here and if anyone could explain using one piece of evidence obtained from each spectrum why in fact the compound is ethanol.

Here is a link of spectra's

http://imgur.com/a/hCZeV

Any help on this subject would be much appreciated!

[TheUnassuming]

Per the forum rules, no one will do what you are asking exactly.  Its far too close to doing homework for someone for comfort and you haven't shown us any leg work on your part.  We can  nudge you in the right direction though .

So for the first spectra (IR), what are the main peaks you see? If you look at a table of common IR absorption values, do any of them match what you would expect for EtOH?

[Kari]

ahh, that's fair! I've been giving it a good stab and hopefully I'm getting somewhere understanding all this ^^

As for the IR there is a strong broad peak between 3200-3750 which does indicate a O-H group. There is also a strong sharp peak between 2800-3100 which indicates a C-H bond and finally a strong sharp peak between 1100-1310 showing the presence of a C-O group.

Hopefully I'm heading in the right direction, is there anything further I'm missing on the IR, I'm not sure that I'm getting it all. Cheers for replying also!

[TheUnassuming]

Off to a good start .
Those are the main peaks I would worry about with the IR.  IR is great for giving you basic yes or no answers to the presence of certain functional groups, but that is about all its good for usually.  Some chemists (older generation or inorganic/materials guys) will delve into the fingerprint region to try to analyze each peak, but its generally unnecessary if you have NMR and mass.  Worry about the big peaks above the fingerprint region in most cases.

Next onto the NMR! 
With the proton specta, which peaks do you attribute to which protons in EtOH?  Why? 
With the carbon specta, which peaks do you attribute to which carbons and why?