Saturday, July 16, 2011

Why does phenol have lower dipole moment than methanol?

In phenol, the lone pairs of electrons of the oxygen atom are delocalised across the aromatic ring (via electron transfer known as resonance) this reduces the polarity of the C-O bond. Methanol, which has no aromatic ring and the lone pair of electrons from the oxygen are not delocalised meaning that the C-O bond in this case has a higher polarity.

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