Alcohol and Phenol Acidity

[@purnimasingh8780]

shouldn't hydrogen bonding in alcohol be between oxygen and hydrogen ?

[@ChemComplete]

Hydrogen bonding is an intermolecular force. This means the hydrogen at the end of one alcohol will create strong attractive forces to the oxygen in another alcohol. However hydrogen bonding is not the same as the covalent bond that exists between an oxygen and hydrogen (that is the alcohol bond itself).

[@shunxian5926]

Actually hydrogen bonding is formed between O and H, right?

[@andreaknight8962]

This was my immediate thought.

[@behlolkhan8129]

It means that phenols are more stable and more acidic.. How? If there is resonance which supports stability.. Still somehow increases the acidity how?

[@majidsskgb8930]

plz also compare the carboxylic acid and phenol acidity

[@ChemComplete]

Because carboxylic acids are technically not alcohols, they were omitted from this section. As a general rule, most carboxylic acids will be more acidic than phenols. Carboxylic acids always offer delocalization (resonance) of electrons to 2 oxygens, which are highly suited for accepting electron density due to their electronegativity. While phenols are acidic, many of their resonance forms place the electron density on carbon, which is a weaker contributor. As a general rule, the better the resonance, the stronger the acidity.