Question

Diethyl ether and butan-1-ol are isomers, and they have similar solubilities in water. their boiling points are very different, however. explain why these two compounds have similar solubility properties but dramatically different boiling points

Answer 1

The structure of diethyl ether and butan-1-ol are shown in the figure.

As shown in the figure the diethyl ether will be able to form hydrogen bond with water and so is butanol, due to presence of highly electro-negative element (oxygen)

However a molecule of diethyl ether is not able to form such hydrogen bond with another diethyl ether molecule. Due to this it has lower boiling point

Butanol is able to form hydrogen bond with another butanol molecule due to this it has high boiling point