Definition of Hemiacetal

A hemiacetal is a chemical compound that is organic and is formed when the chiral carbon is connected to two atoms of oxygen. One oxygen atom belongs to the alcohol (-OH) function group whereas the other oxygen is of ether (R-O-R). In simple words, the addition of alcohol to aldehyde results in a hemiacetal.

Example of Hemiacetal:

An example of the hemiacetal is 1-methoxyethan-1-ol. In this case, every alkyl (R) group is methane, a CH3. This is known to be the simplest of all the hemiacetals.

They can be synthesized in several ways which include partial hydrolyzing the acetals, adding the alcohol to the carbonyl carbon of aldehyde by nucleophilic addition, etc.