Suggest why Phenol is more reactive than Benzene in Electrophillic Substitution

With phenol, the oxygen atom is directly attached to the delocolised pi system in phenol, as a result the lone pair on this oxygen is incorporated into this delocolised pi system in phenol, increasing it's electron density.Therefore making it more susceptible to electrophillic attack, where the electrophile (which is electron deffiecient, is attracted to high areas of electron density. Whereas the delocolised pi system in benzene is not as electron rich, and is less suseptible to electrophillic attack, and substitution goes at a much slower rate

HC

Related Chemistry A Level answers

All answers ▸

Why does phenol readily undergo electrophilic substitution but benzene does not without the aid of a catalyst?


Elements in the periodic table show a trend in atomic radius. State and explain the trend in atomic radius from Li to F.


The molecular formula of TCDD is C12H4O2Cl4. Chlorine exists as two isotopes 35Cl (75%) and 37Cl (25%). How many molecular ion peaks are there? What is the mass of the most abundant one?


Explain why the structure of benzene cannot be acurately described using Kekule's structure (cyclohexa-1,3,5-triene).