[rsh28]

I know that the acid Catalyzed Hydration of 1-pentene gives 2-pentanol
But my question is do the products include stereoisomers since 2-pentanol is chiral , and we do have a carbocation being formed which is planar and can be attacked from both sides.

My book mentions 2-pentanol as the product ( it does not say anything about enantiomers or sterioisomers)

Please help

Question 2 : When a reaction is steriospecific ( unlike this reaction ) does that mean we will only have 1 product

Thank you in advance

[Dan]

1. Yes, you will get racemic pentan-2-ol.
2. A reaction is stereospecific if the configuration of the starting material determines the configuration of the product - ie that the configuration is in some way completely transferred to the product. It is associated with mechanistic constraints, such as the requirement of inversion in S_N2 reactions. The formal definition is that if you take two different stereoisomers of a compound and subject them to the same conditions, you get a different stereoisomeric product in each case:

http://www.chem.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/stereo/RS.html#51

So I suppose in answer to you question regarding whether you get one product, in terms of stereochemistry - yes , stereospecific reactions give one stereoisomer only.

It's important to note the difference between stereospecific and stereoselective. You can have a reaction that is >99% stereoselective, but that does not mean it is stereospecific. To be stereospecific it must be only mechanistically possible to form one stereoisomer - e.g. S_N2 cannot proceed with retention of configuration, only inversion.