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

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When all the above molecules are treated with water, the phenol molecule easily forms phenoxide ion and also gets stabilised duet to resonance. These features increase its acidity, but in the case of ethanol, the ion formed is ethoxide ion which is very unstable; thus, the acidity of the compound is very less. But water being a good proton donor is slightly more acidic than ethanol. The increasing order of acidity is: Ethanol < water < phenol

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