Getting acetic acid from ethanol.

In order to chemically obtain acetic acid from ethanol, you need to go through 2 stages.

Let’s look at each of them and write down the reaction equations.

First stage of transformation. We carry out the conversion of ethanol to acetaldehyde using copper oxide (2). Reaction equation:

C2H5OH + CuO = CH3COH + Cu + H2O.

The second stage of obtaining acetic acid – oxidation to acid is carried out using the “silver mirror” reaction.

Let’s write down the reaction equation and equalize it:

CH3COH + Ag2O = CH3COOH + 2Ag.