what is the product when sodium reacts with ethanol
Answers
If a small piece of sodium is dropped into some ethanol, it reacts steadily to give off bubbles of hydrogen gas and leaves a colourless solution of sodium ethoxide, CH3CH2ONa. Sodium ethoxide is known as an alkoxide.
If the solution is evaporated carefully to dryness, the sodium ethoxide is left as a white solid.
Although at first sight you might think this was something new and complicated, in fact it is exactly the same (apart from being a more gentle reaction) as the reaction between sodium and water - something you have probably known about for years.
Compare the two:
We normally, of course, write the sodium hydroxide formed as NaOH rather than HONa - but that's the only difference.
Sodium ethoxide is just like sodium hydroxide, except that the hydrogen has been replaced by an ethyl group. Sodium hydroxide contains OH- ions; sodium ethoxide contains CH3CH2O- ions.
Note: The reason that the ethoxide formula is written with the oxygen on the right unlike the hydroxide ion is simply a matter of clarity. If you write it the other way around, it doesn't immediately look as if it comes from ethanol. You will find the same thing happens when you write formulae for organic salts like sodium ethanoate.
