This deep dive covers The Alcohol Family Structure within Alcohols for GCSE Chemistry. Revise Alcohols in Organic Chemistry for GCSE Chemistry with 20 exam-style questions and 15 flashcards. This topic appears less often, but it can still be a useful differentiator on mixed-topic papers. It is section 2 of 13 in this topic. Use this deep dive to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
Topic position
Section 2 of 13
Practice
20 questions
Recall
15 flashcards
🔬 The Alcohol Family Structure
General Formula: CₙH₂ₙ₊₁OH
- All alcohols contain the -OH functional group
- The hydrocarbon chain can be any length
- Example: Ethanol = C₂H₅OH = C₂H₆ with one H replaced by OH
The First Four Alcohols (Essential to memorise!):
1. Methanol (CH₃OH) — simplest alcohol; TOXIC — can cause blindness; used as antifreeze and fuel
2. Ethanol (C₂H₅OH) — the alcohol in drinks; biofuel and industrial solvent
3. Propanol (C₃H₇OH) — industrial solvent; used in hand sanitisers
4. Butanol (C₄H₉OH) — potential biofuel alternative; industrial applications
Figure 1: The first four alcohols, all sharing the -OH functional group. Naming uses the same prefixes as alkanes (meth-, eth-, prop-, but-) with the suffix "-anol".