Arrange water, ethanol and, phenol in increasing order of acidity and give reason for your answer.

This is a short answer type question as classified in NCERT Exemplar

Increasing order of acidity is: ethanol < water < phenol.
This is because the phenoxide ion obtained after the removal of H⁺ is resonance stabilised, while the ethoxide ion obtained after the removal of H⁺ is destabilised by +1 effect of ethyl group. Thus phenol is a stronger acid than ethanol.
Now, ethanol is a weaker acid than water because the electron releasing ethyl group increases the ethanol density on oxygen and consequently the proton will not be released easily. There is no such effect is water.

<p><span data-teams="true">This is a short answer type question as classified in NCERT Exemplar</span></p><p>Increasing order of acidity is: ethanol &lt; water &lt; phenol.<br>This is because the phenoxide ion obtained after the removal of H⁺&nbsp;is resonance stabilised, while the ethoxide ion obtained after the removal of H⁺&nbsp;is destabilised by +1 effect of ethyl group. Thus phenol is a stronger acid than ethanol.<br>Now, ethanol is a weaker acid than water because the electron releasing ethyl group increases the ethanol density on oxygen and consequently the proton will not be released easily. There is no such effect is water.</p><div><div><picture><source srcset="https://images.shiksha.com/mediadata/images/articles/1746522374phpttRbAK_480x360.jpeg" media=" (max-width: 500px)"><img src="https://images.shiksha.com/mediadata/images/articles/1746522374phpttRbAK_480x360.jpeg"0 alt="" width="307" height="113"></picture></div></div>

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