Alcohols, Ethers, and Epoxides: Crash Course Organic Chemistry #24

What comes to mind when you think of alcohol? Probably alcoholic drinks like beer or wine. But in organic chemistry alcohols are an important and versatile family of compounds. In this episode of Crash Course Organic Chemistry, we’ll use alcohols as a starting point to get other types of compounds like ethers, epoxides, and more!

Episode Sources:

Series Sources:
Brown, W. H., Iverson, B. L., Ansyln, E. V., Foote, C., Organic Chemistry; 8th ed.; Cengage Learning, Boston, 2018.
Bruice, P. Y., Organic Chemistry, 7th ed.; Pearson Education, Inc., United States, 2014.
Clayden, J., Greeves, N., Warren., S., Organic Chemistry, 2nd ed.; Oxford University Press, New York, 2012.
Jones Jr., M.; Fleming, S. A., Organic Chemistry, 5th ed.; W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2014.
Klein., D., Organic Chemistry; 1st ed.; John Wiley & Sons, United States, 2012.
Louden M., Organic Chemistry; 5th ed.; Roberts and Company Publishers, Colorado, 2009.
McMurry, J., Organic Chemistry, 9th ed.; Cengage Learning, Boston, 2016.
Smith, J. G., Organic chemistry; 6th ed.; McGraw-Hill Education, New York, 2020.
Wade., L. G., Organic Chemistry; 8th ed.; Pearson Education, Inc., United States, 2013.

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[drrichardpepper]

Not sure if you know this or not, but in prison in Georgia your videos are actually downloadable on these tablets they gave us. I went when I was 18 and watched your videos 2-3 years later when I got one. I would watch them every night before I fell asleep after I got to a decent place. Just wanted to say thank you for the videos and you are teaching people you may not even know about.

[ricardasist]

Am I the only one who can't keep up with how fast everything is being explained?

[ShirinRose]

I'm a little surprised there was no mention of ethers like diethyl ether being used as solvents in organic reactions. I remember using it to extract organic products from aqueous solutions at university, and having to be careful to regularly release the pressure from the separating funnel since diethyl ether is so volatile.

[alyssa]

OMG I watched the first video in this series out of curiosity, and when I went to look up the full playlist I was surprised to see that it's still in progress!! This was uploaded 5 days ago when I'm seeing it. I'm trying to decide if I should take ochem over the summer so I wanted to see what the topics were. This series came just in time!!!

[anjulovesdoracakes]

Please upload a video on aldehydes, ketones and carboxylic acids ( I.e carbonyl compounds) and amines ASAP!

[ScottKorin]

This isn't a coincidence that this was released on St. Patrick's Day

[rachitvyas]

greatttt!
Failed a chem test on the same topic today

[samad]

this a great lecture you sure are trying really hard to make this as intresting and understandable as possible because there are so many repeatitions in organic chemistry

[finhasnebiyou]

Fun Fact: The requirment to be teacher in crash course is FAST-TALKING!

[ayurshee]

WOWW!! I AM IN LOVE WITH ORGANIC CHEM NOW!❤

[tanviudgiri]

i didn't think i'd be early to a crash course video, but here i am, and honestly i'm not disappointed

[muskansiddikee]

Man I feel sad it's to late 😭.
I wish I had this before my high school 😭

[michellekeenan]

Hey could you guys make a video series on nutrition??

[kl]

Oh talk sn2 too me, you set the tempo i do the work

[yashvangala]

I'm sad that my O chem class will be ahead of this series by next week
I can't use crash course to study for exams anymore :(

[philippg.]

Once again a phenomenal video! Just one remark: At around 5:20, you talk about the general model of the reaction of an alcohol with an hydrogen halide to form an alkyl halide. Yet, what you show in the video is the distinct example of using hydrochloric acid to form an alkyl chloride. When talking about the general mechanism, wouldn't it be even more suitable to replace "HCl" with "HX" to show that any hydrogen halide can be used? And that any alkyl halide can thus be obtained using this approach?

[caterscarrots]

Couldn't an aldehyde also be formed by adding a base to form the alkoxide and then time? Since negatively charged oxygen is unstable, if there is nothing else to react with, it will form a double bond with the carbon for stabilization purposes and tada, you have an aldehyde. And there wouldn't be anything else to react with, right? because the base has been neutralized and it's not like it can react with other alkoxides as they too have a negative charge on the oxygen and neutral carbons. So with a neutralized base and no further reaction, it's only time before the aldehyde is formed, right?

[Qhsjahajw]

8:39 in base catalysed reaction H3O+ is mentioned

[whiteb]

This video has some flickering issues, like in the first 15 seconds of the video has a few but it continues throughout the video

[anasm]

How many more videos do we have?
Fun🎉🎉