Cinnamaldehyde, the pleasant-smelling substance found in cinnamon oil, has the following structure:
What products would you expect to obtain from reaction of cinnamaldehyde with water and sulfuric acid catalyst?

Question

Cinnamaldehyde, the pleasant-smelling substance found in cinnamon oil, has the following structure:

What products would you expect to obtain from reaction of cinnamaldehyde with water and sulfuric acid catalyst?

Accepted Answer

All right. Hi, everyone. So this question says that styrene is used as a precursor to produce rubbers and plastics. Its structure is sh be up predict the major products formed from the reaction of styrene with water and sulfuric acid catalysts. And here we have four different answer choices. Now, the main thing I wanna point out when it comes to the answer choices is that some products proposed here involve the benzene ring directly. Whereas others do not recall that styrene here is an all in because we do have a double bond between two car rs outside of the benzene rink. Now this all keen can react with water and sulfuric acid catalyst in what's known as a hydration reaction, right, in which water is added across both carbons of the A K. So here stre reacts with water in the presence of H two. So four catalyst. Now, when I say that this reaction is the addition of water across an alkene. What I mean by that is that one carbon of the alkene receives a hydrogen whereas the other receives an oh group. Therefore, the product is an alcohol. Now, because this is the addition reaction of an all keen, the benzene ring is actually going to be untouched in this case. So if I consider answer choices, B and C options, B and C imply that the O group is added on to the benzene ring directly. And that is not the case, right. Recall that a benzene ring or any aromatic ring is highly stable and therefore unreactive to addition, because addition would imply that that stability is compromised, right? So that is not going to happen in this case. So instead, we have to consider where the O A troop is going to add. Now, in truth, we are going to end up with a mixture of two different products, right? Because here the O group could add on to both carbons of the starting old keep. However, one product is certainly favored over the other right wooden product features the O group on the carbon adjacent to the benzene ring. Whereas the other features that oh group on the second carbon farther away from the benzene ring now recalled hydration is an example of a Markov Kov edition. And what that means is that the O group in this case, is going to add on to the more substituted carbon of the A K. So because the carbon attached to the benzene ring is more substituted, that is where the O group is predominantly going to attach itself to. So the more substituted alcohol is the major product because this is my Comedy co edition, meaning that my answer is going to be option D in the multiple choice because option A while it does form to some extent, it is not going to be the major product. So thats why our answer here is option D. And with that being said, thank you so very much for watching and I hope you found this helpful.

Cinnamaldehyde, the pleasant-smelling substance found in cinnamon oil, has the following structure:

What products would you expect to obtain from reaction of cinnamaldehyde with water and sulfuric acid catalyst?

Verified video answer for a similar problem:

Key Concepts

Cinnamaldehyde Structure and Reactivity

Hydration Reaction

Role of Sulfuric Acid as a Catalyst