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Adding water in acidic conditions to an alkyne gives methyl ketone as the major product. Plz tell me the reason for this...

Adding water in acidic conditions to an alkyne gives methyl ketone as the major product. Plz tell me the reason for this...

Grade:12th Pass

1 Answers

Adarsh
733 Points
8 years ago

As with alkenes, the addition of water to alkynes requires a strong acid, usually sulfuric acid, and is facilitated by mercuric sulfate. However, unlike the additions to double bonds which give alcohol products, addition of water to alkynes gives ketone products ( except for acetylene which yields acetaldehyde ). The explanation for this deviation lies in enol-keto tautomerization, illustrated by the following equation. The initial product from the addition of water to an alkyne is an enol (a compound having a hydroxyl substituent attached to a double-bond), and this immediately rearranges to the more stable keto tautomer.

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