Question

convert ethanol to butyne

Answer 1

I've searched through a couple of textbooks and notes and I don't see any direct way to do the reaction.

I think I can use thionyl chloride to to convert from alcohol to chloroalkane:CH3CH2OH+SOCl2⟶CH3CH2Cl+HCl+SO2↑The SO2 escapes but I'm not sure how I can get rid of the HCl.

Assuming that I do get rid of it somehow, I can take the resulting chloroalkane and add an alkynyl group to it hence forming the required higher alkane.CH3CH2Cl+C2HNa+NaCl⟶CH3CH2C≡CH+…

Again, the mechanism of these reactions elude me. I've only figured out the above from randomly stated properties of reagents. A detailed method of the conversion would be helpful.