[alexalexmaiden]

can someone plz help me what is the product of a secondary alcohol + KOH and heat ?? thank you

[Babcock_Hall]

You must show an attempt before we can help you.  What sorts of reactions do you think might occur?

[alexalexmaiden]

the only thing that i can think about is dehydration... instead of OH > OK and water maybe??

[Babcock_Hall]

instead of OH > OK and water maybe??

I don't understand what you mean by the above phrase.  With respect to dehydration, that is what I thought at first, but the leaving group is terrible.

[alexalexmaiden]

i dont know , i cant think of anything else

[Babcock_Hall]

A base can always remove a proton.  Just thinking out loud.

[alexalexmaiden]

i think that the product is alkene

[Hunter2]

No, Alcohol can work like an acid. So what can it be.

[alexalexmaiden]

the professor of my organic chemistry lessons said that... 2 pentanol + KOH and heat gives 2-pentene 

[spirochete]

Either you've misunderstood your professor or your professor has made a mistake. Hydroxide will not be a leaving group in either an E2 or E1 reaction, so the product is not an alkene. The alcohol could act like an acid, although hydroxide is not a strong enough base to fully deprotonate an alcohol.  Thus there will be an equilibrium between the alkoxide and water and the hydroxide reagent and the alcohol.

[hypervalent_iodine]

As others have said here, you will not get a dehydration reaction with a base and heat. For this to happen, you'd need a strong acid and heat. The hydrogen on the alcohol is very mildly acidic; if you were to put a base in with this alcohol, the base (if strong enough) will react with the acid and you end up with an alkoxide. We use this type of reaction in, for example, the Williamson ether synthesis.

[alexalexmaiden]

ok ... understood, thank you

[Irlanur]

An E1_cb would in principle be possible, but I doubt that this works in this case.

[Babcock_Hall]

I could imagine that a E1cB reaction would occur if the alcohol functional group were beta with respect to a ketone.