How can you test for aldehydes and ketones?

Aldehydes can be differentiated from ketones as they give a positive result for the following tests -Tollens' reagent turns from a colourless solution to a silver precipitate.Fehling's solution turns from a blue solution to a red/orange precipitate.If the compound present is a ketone, there will be no further reaction. The reason these tests give the above results for aldehydes is because the reagents are weak oxidising agents, so the aldehydes are oxidised to carboxylic acids and the reagents are reduced, resulting in the observable changes. Ketones cannot be further oxidised, so this is why there is no reaction.

GN

Related Chemistry A Level answers

All answers ▸

Explain why Xenon had a lower first ionisation enthalpy than Neon. (3 marks)


Given the reaction: H2SO4 + NaOH --> ? + H2O. (a). Work out the salt produced (?) and (b). calculate the pH of the remaining solution when 1.2 g of NaOH and 4.41 g of H2SO4 were added in a 500 ml solution. Of the unreacted H2SO4 95% dissociated.


What is an optical isomer?


Explain how fractional distillation works.