Description

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) is bound to a carbon.^[2] The term alcohol originally referred to the primary alcohol ethanol (ethyl alcohol), which is used as a drug and is the main alcohol present in alcoholic beverages. An important class of alcohols, of which methanol and ethanol are the simplest members, includes all compounds for which the general formula is C_nH_2n+1OH. It is these simple monoalcohols that are the subject of this article