Basic Alcohols

Alcohols take the form of a Hydrocarbon with an Hydroxide molecule attached at some location. The basic alcohols attach the Hydroxide molecule to the end of the chain. More complex alcohols attach the Hydroxide at some point along the chain.

Our basic building blocks are Hydrogen, Carbon and Oxygen, as shown in the following image.

Methanol - CH₃OH

The most basic alcohol is Methanol. It is a light, volatile, colorless, flammable liquid. It is so flammable that it is often used as a fuel in race cars but is being replaced by Ethanol for safety reasons.

To build Methanol, we take a Methane molecule, CH₄, and swap out 1 Hydrogen atom with an Hydroxide molecule to form CH₃OH.

Ethanol - CH₃CH₂OH

Ethanol is the alcohol we all know and love. It is mostly used for consumption but can also be used as a solvent, an antiseptic and as a fuel. It is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid primarily produced by fermenting sugars by yeast.



We can see from this model that we are adding a CH₂ into the middle of Methanol to build Ethanol.

Propyl Alcohol - CH₃(CH₂)₂OH

Propyl Alcohol, also known as 1-propanol, is a colorless liquid mostly used as a solvent for resins and cellulose esters. You may be more familiar with its isomer, Isopropyl alcohol, which is used as an antiseptic and a solvent (great for cleaning you LCD monitor, I also use it to clean copper clad boards before I etch a circuit onto them).

Butyl Alcohol - CH₃(CH₂)₃OH

Butyl Alcohol, also known as Butanol, is primarily used as a solvent but can be used as a fuel. It has four isomers and I am only showing the most basic form here. The other configurations place the Hydroxide molecule at different positions along the chain.

Pentyl Alcohol - CH₃(CH₂)₄OH

Pentyl alcohol, also known as an Amyl alcohol, can take 1 of 8 forms and is mostly used as a solvent. I am showing its normal form here.

From these models we can see that we have a Hydrocarbon chain with an Hydroxide molecule attached to one end. The Oxygen atom provides a boost to the charge strength which means that the molecule will have a stronger charge emission at one end of it, almost like an ion. That is, the Oxygen atom will emit more charge from its equator than the Carbon atoms while also pushing more charge into those Carbons because it has a stronger pull on the ambient charge field. You could think of the Oxygen as a turbo charger, which forces more air (ambient charge) into an engine (Carbon chain) so that we can add more fuel and get a bigger bang (charge emission).