Response to Peer Review:

Hello,

Thank you for your review of my work. I appreciate your time and feedback on improving my article. I have included my responses below:

Lead:

The lead has been change a lot from the original version, I can understand what is this article what to say and what is the Aldo. But for the sentence “The term "aldol" may refer to 3-hydroxybutanal.” A picture of 3-hydrocubutanal may added beside this sentence. Also, we can add a little about hazard, waste disposal of the Aldo in the lead section and talk more specific in the content section.

I appreciate the reviewer's feedback that the introduction makes it clear what will be discussed. In terms of adding a picture of 3-hydroxybutanal, I agree that having visual elements is helpful for the reader, and one is included on the right-hand side (which may not have been visible in my sandbox), and I have edited it to include a descriptor of the positions of the carbons for additional clarity. As for the hazards, I agree that this is definitely an interesting topic to discuss, however, considering there are a variety of different aldols with varying degrees of toxicity, it would not be beneficial to generalize all aldols as being hazardous or not.

Content:

I appreciate the feedback that the content is all up-to-date and relevant to the topic, and the recognition of new information (e.g. the intramolecular ring formation). I agree with the reviewer that additional Wikipedia links should be added, and have updated the page to include them. As for the hazards and waste, as mentioned above, I do appreciate where this could be relevant, however, I think this would be better suited for pages discussing specific aldols, and therefore did not include this in my page.

Tone and balance:

I appreciate the feedback that the tone was kept neutral and unbiased, and that I did not intentionally over or underrepresent any perspectives.

Sources and references:

The reviewer is correct that I had not properly cited any new references. I did add additional information to my final article, and cited it accoridngly.

Organization:

I appreciate that the reviewer found the article well-organized in terms of sections (e.g. synthesis and reactions), grammatically correct, and easy to read.

Overall Impressions:

I appreciate that the reviewer found the article informative, and well-structured. I agree with the reviewer regarding the stereochemistry terms being confusing, and corrected this by linking the discussion to the relevant wikipedia page discussing stereochemical nomenclature. I also agree that images are beneficial to the reader, and have updated the pre-existing images and captions. Although I would also find discussions on environmental impacts interesting, I believe it is too broad a topic for this specific article, and therefore did not include it.


I would like to thank the peer-reviewer for their time and thoughtful input on my article. I have taken their suggestions into account to help improve the article.

Sincerely,

Lucy

General aldol structure showing the α and 𝛽 positions of carbons relative to the carbonyl. When R3 is -H, it is an aldol, when R3 is a carbon, it is a ketol.

In organic chemistry, an aldol is a structure consisting of a hydroxy group (-OH) two carbons away from either an aldehyde or a ketone. The name combines the suffix 'ol' from the alcohol and the prefix depending on the carbonyl group, either 'ald' for an aldehyde, or 'ket' for a ketone, in which case it referred to as a 'ketol'. An aldol may also be referred to as a β-hydroxy aldehyde (or β-hydroxy ketone for a ketol). The term "aldol" may refer to 3-hydroxybutanal.

Aldols are the product of a carbon-carbon bond formation reaction, giving them wide applicability as a pre-cursor for a variety of other compounds.

Synthesis and reactions[edit]

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Possible stereochemical configurations for chiral aldols. R/S configurations of chiral centers: A: OH is 4R, R-group is 3R B: OH is 4S, R-group is 3S C: OH is 4R, R-group is 3S D: OH is 4S, R-group is 3R




Aldols are usually synthesized using an aldol addition reaction using two aldehydes or an aldehyde and a ketone for a ketol. These reactions may be done intramolecularly to form 5, or 6 membered rings or for stereoselective syntheses in the active area of asymmetric synthesis.

Aldols may also undergo a condensation reaction in which the hydroxy group is replaced by a pi-bond. The final structure is an α,β-unsaturated carbonyl compound, which are also used in a variety of reactions.

Applications[edit]

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Aldols synthesized from two aldehydes are usually unstable, often producing secondary compounds such as diols, unsaturated aldehydes, or alcohols. Hydroxypivaldehyde is a rare example of a distillable aldol[1]. The aldol 3-hydroxybutanal is a precursor to quinaldine, a precursor to the dye quinoline Yellow SS[2].

Aldols are also used as intermediates in the synthesis of polyketide natural products and drugs such as Oseltamivir and Epothilone[3].

See also[edit]

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  1. ^ Zhang, Yanping; Mu, Hongliang; Pan, Li; Wang, Xuling; Li, Yuesheng (2018-07-06). "Robust Bulky [P,O] Neutral Nickel Catalysts for Copolymerization of Ethylene with Polar Vinyl Monomers". ACS Catalysis. 8 (7): 5963–5976. doi:10.1021/acscatal.8b01088. ISSN 2155-5435.
  2. ^ Wiley-VCH, ed. (2003-03-11). Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry (1 ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/14356007.a01_321.pub3. ISBN 978-3-527-30385-4.
  3. ^ Schinzer, Dieter (2004-06-24), Mahrwald, Rainer (ed.), "The Aldol Reaction in Natural Product Synthesis: The Epothilone Story", Modern Aldol Reactions (1 ed.), Wiley, pp. 311–328, doi:10.1002/9783527619566.ch7, ISBN 978-3-527-30714-2, retrieved 2024-04-15