Question

What is an enolization reaction?

Answer 1

Enols also known by the name alkenes where alkenes represented two groups in it i.e. the word is made up of alkene and ol which represent there is one alkene group and alcoholic group is present in the enol rather than alcohol ketone is also there.

Complete step-by-step answer: Enol are generally a type of reactive structure or intermediate in an organic chemistry where intermediate is that moiety which is produced from reactant and reacts further to produce product. This generally represented an alkene with hydroxyl group attached to one end of the alkene group.
Enols often involve protonation i.e. removal of hydrogen from the adjacent carbonyl group and when the lost proton is not returned at the end of the process then the result is an anion which is known by the name enolate.
Enolization generally occurs in esters, ketones and aldehydes and the necessary condition for this reaction is they must have alpha hydrogen adjacent to the carbonyl group and they form enols. This reaction involves migration of protons from carbon to oxygen atom and the enolization reaction can be shown as:
$RC(O)CHR{{'}_{2}}\rightleftharpoons RC(OH)=CR{{'}_{2}}$
In the case of ketones this type of conversion is known as keto-enol tautomerism where the term tautomerism defines the migration of hydrogen atoms in any compound.

Note: Enols are basically the derivatives of vinyl alcohol. Deprotonation of enol gives enolate anion which are strong nucleophiles in nature. Enols have many applications in biochemistry, enzyme catalyzed reactions and in synthetic organic chemistry.