What functional group resembles a hydroxyl group?

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What functional group resembles a hydroxyl group?

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Answer 1 · 2016-06-08T05:16:13

You may be asking about sulfhydryl groups ( $- SH$ $-"SH"$ ), which resemble a hydroxyl group ( $- OH$ $-"OH"$ ), so compounds that only contain $- SH$ $-"SH"$ as a unique functional group are named based off of the original alcohol.

NOTE: Entire compounds are not functional groups; ethanol cannot be a functional group, because it is a complete, defined compound.

However, $- OH$ $-"OH"$ is a molecular fragment and is called a functional group.

Normally alcohols have IUPAC names ending in "-ol", and have prefixes based off of the original alkane (e.g. $Ethan ol$ $\mathbf("Ethan")"ol"$ ).

${CH}_{3} {CH}_{2} SH$ $"CH"_3"CH"_2"SH"$ , or ethanethiol, is the sulfur analog of ${CH}_{3} {CH}_{2} OH$ $"CH"_3"CH"_2"OH"$ (ethanol). Ethanethiol is a thiol, while ethanol is a regular alcohol.

A simple way to name the sulfur analog of an alcohol, if the alcohol exists, is to simply add "thi" before "-ol" and utilize the entire name of the would-be alkane instead of omitting the vowel before the suffix.

$Ethan ol$ $"Ethan"\mathbf("ol")$ $\to$ $->$ $Ethan ethiol$ $"Ethan"\mathbf("ethiol")$

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What functional group resembles a hydroxyl group?

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