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

Explanation

The phenoxide ion obtained after the removal of a proton is resonance stabilised as follows

Whereas, the ethoxide ion obtained after the removal of a proton is not stabilised but destabilised due to +I effect of `-C_(2)H_(5)` group. Therefore, phenol is a stronger acid than ethanol. +I effect of `CH_(3)-CH_(2)` group increase the electron is more than that of water. So, ethanol is a weaker acid than water. Thus, the increasing order of acidity is
`"ethanol" lt "water" lt "phenol"`