Question

Draw the product of the oxidation of the following aldehyde. Include all hydrogen atoms in your structure. 

Answer 1

Concepts and reason

The chemical reaction that takes place by the addition of oxygen and the removal of hydrogen is represented as oxidation reaction. Loss of electrons also represents oxidation.

Fundamentals

Oxidation reaction is used for the functional group transformation. There are two steps involved in the formation of carboxylic acid from aldehyde.

Step 1:

Adding water to aldehyde in the presence of acid catalyst leads to the formation of hydrate. General mechanism:

Step 2:

With the help of oxidant, E2 elimination undergoes carboxylic acid formation by eliminating the leaving group (LG).

 

First, water is added to the carbonyl group. This addition leads to the shifting of carbonyl bond \((\mathrm{C}=\mathrm{O})\) and creates a negative charge on oxygen and positive charge on oxygen that is formed by the addition of water. Then, the deprotonation reaction undergoes to stabilize the positive charge on oxygen. Finally, protonation reaction undergoes by the carbonyl oxygen \(\mathrm{n}\) which leads to the formation of hydrate.

Oxidation of aldehyde:

The leaving group gets attached to one of the oxygen molecule if any oxidant is added to the hydrate. Carboxylic acid is formed with the help of E2 mechanism by eliminating the leaving group.