Question

How will you prepare acetylene from Ethylene dichloride? Give a balanced chemical equation.

Answer 1

Acetylene is an alkyne and it can be easily prepared by the process of dehydrohalogenation of alkenes and alkanes. It undergoes elimination reactions for that purpose. Dehydrohalogenation refers to the removal of hydrogen halides present in the compounds.

Complete step by step answer:

Acetylene is an alkyne with the chemical formula ${{C}_{2}}{{H}_{2}}$ and structure $HC\equiv CH$ . It can be prepared by both alkene and alkane. There are various ways to prepare it. It can be prepared by dehydrogenation as well as by dehydrohalogenation.
Ethylene dichloride is an alkane with the functional group of two chlorides. Its chemical formula is ${{C}_{2}}{{H}_{4}}C{{l}_{2}}$ and its structure can be shown as:

Acetylene can easily be prepared from ethylene dichloride by the process of hydrohalogenation. It is a process in which a hydrogen atom is removed from 1 carbon atom and a halide atom is removed from the other carbon atom present at the anti position to form a pi-bond between the two carbon atoms.
Here we have 2 chlorine atoms. So the process can occur in 2 steps. First 1 hydrogen and 1 chlorine will get removed from opposite directions to form an alkene and then the process will be repeated so as to form alkyne. This way we can form acetylene from ethylene dichloride.
The chemical equation can be shown as follows:

Note: Dehalogenation is different from dehydrohalogenation. In the former, the halogen escapes as a gas and in the form of its molecule with the formula ${{X}_{2}}$ where X represents the halogens. In the latter, HX gas is liberated after the completion of the reaction where X is the single atom of halogen.