Explain the acidic nature of alcohols.

Explanation

Alcohols react with active metals such as sodium to yield corresponding alkoxides and hydrogen, i.e. they act as bronsted acids.
`2R-OH+2Na to 2RONa+H_(2)`
The acidic character of alcohols is due to the polar nature of O-H bond.
Number of electron releasing alkyl groups decreases the acidity of the alcohols.
Thus the acidic character decreases as `underset("Primary")(RCH_(2)OH) gt underset("Secondary")(R_(2)CHOH) gt underset("Tertiary")(R_(3)C-OH)`