Chapter 16 examines the chemistry of alcohols, a versatile and synthetically important class of compound. The chapter covers the preparation, reactions and classification of alcohols, and develops the mechanistic and conceptual reasoning that accounts for their behaviour.

The chapter opens with the classification of alcohols as primary, secondary or tertiary, and the range of reactions by which they can be prepared. Their chemical reactions are then treated systematically, including combustion, substitution to form halogenoalkanes, reaction with sodium, oxidation with acidified dichromate or manganate(VII) to give carbonyl compounds or carboxylic acids depending on conditions, dehydration to an alkene, and esterification with carboxylic acids. The iodoform reaction is introduced as a means of identifying the CH3CH(OH) group, and the acidity of alcohols is discussed and compared with that of water.