Question

An alcohol has the molecular formula ${C_4}{H_{10}}O$ . Write the structural formulae of the isomers to show chain isomerism?

Answer 1

Alcohols are the compounds containing a hydroxyl group. Given molecule is an alcohol. Alcohols exhibit different types of structural isomerism like chain isomerism, position isomerism and functional isomerism. The chain isomers are the compounds with the same molecular formula but differ in carbon skeleton.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
The compound has the molecular formula of ${C_4}{H_{10}}O$ It is an alcohol. Alcohols can exhibit structural isomerism like chain isomerism, position isomerism and functional isomerism.
The compounds with the same molecular formula but differ in the carbon skeleton are called chain isomers and the phenomenon is known as chain isomerism.
The given molecule is butanol as there were four carbon atoms with the hydroxyl group. It can exhibit four chain isomers.
The four chain isomers are n-butanol, $2$ -butanol, $2$ -methyl $1$ -propanol, and $2$ -methyl $2$ -propanol
The structure of n-butanol will be $C{H_3}C{H_2}C{H_2}C{H_2}OH$
The structure of $2$ -butanol will be $C{H_3}C{H_2}CH\left( {OH} \right)C{H_3}$
In the above structure, there are four carbon atoms and one hydroxyl group and the name will be n-butanol. As the suffix for the alcohol is -ol.
$2$ -methyl $1$ -propanol is also an alcohol which can exhibit chain isomerism. The structure will be $C{H_3}CH\left( {C{H_3}} \right)C{H_2}OH$
$2$ -methyl $2$ -propanol has the structure of $C{H_3}C\left( {OH} \right)\left( {C{H_3}} \right)C{H_3}$ .

Note:
n-butanol is also known as $1$ -propanol. $2$ -propanol is also an isomer of butanol but there is a difference at the position of the hydroxyl group. Thus, these both are position isomers to each other. $2$ -methyl $1$ -propanol and $2$ -methyl $2$ -propanol are also positioned isomers to each other.