Question

What is the process of converting propanol to propanoic acid?

Answer 1

Oxidation of alcohol:

• Oxidation is the process of the addition of oxygen atoms or reduction of hydrogen atoms.
• Oxidation of alcohol leads to the formation of aldehyde, ketone or carboxylic acid.
• In presence of a strong oxidizing agent like potassium permanganate, alcohol directly gets converted to a carboxylic acid.

Conversion of propanol to propanoic acid:

• Propanol gets oxidized to propanoic acid in presence of alkaline potassium permanganate.
• The chemical reaction is as follows,
• $\underset{\mathrm{Propanol}}{{\mathrm{CH}}_3{\mathrm{CH}}_2{\mathrm{CH}}_2\mathrm{OH}}\stackrel{\mathrm{Alkaline}{\mathrm{KMnO}}_4}{\to }\underset{\mathrm{Propanoic}\mathrm{acid}}{{\mathrm{CH}}_3{\mathrm{CH}}_2\mathrm{COOH}}$