Correction to "Elucidating Electric Field-Induced Rate Promotion of Brønsted Acid-Catalyzed Alcohol Dehydration"

In a dehydration reaction, a hydroxyl group in an alcohol is eliminated along with the hydrogen from an adjacent carbon. Here, the products are an alkene and a molecule of water. Dehydration of alcohols is generally achieved by heating in the presence of an acid catalyst. While the dehydration of primary alcohols requires high temperatures and acid concentrations, secondary and tertiary alcohols can lose a water molecule under relatively mild conditions.

Alkenes react with water in the presence of an acid to form an alcohol. In the absence of acid, hydration of alkenes does not occur at a significant rate, and the acid is not consumed in the reaction. Therefore, alkene hydration is an acid-catalyzed reaction.

As shown in Figure 1, under acidic conditions, the β-hydroxy ketone undergoes dehydration via an E1 elimination reaction to form an enone.

The rate of acid-catalyzed hydration of alkenes depends on the alkene's structure, as the presence of alkyl substituents at the double bond can significantly influence the rate.

This lesson delves into the aldol condensation catalyzed by bases, where aldols undergo dehydration to enals. As shown in Figure 1, the β-hydroxy aldehyde formed in a base-catalyzed aldol addition reaction dehydrates on heating to yield an unsaturated carbonyl product, which is commonly referred to as an enal.

The aldol reaction of a ketone under acidic conditions successfully forms an unsaturated carbonyl as the final product instead of an aldol. The acid-catalyzed aldol reaction is depicted in Figure 1.