Aldehydes are more reactive than Ketones. Explain.

Explanation

Nucleophilic addition reactions of carbonyl compounds (aldehydes and ketones) involves the following steps :

The reactivity of carbonyl compounds in this reaction depend upon following two factors.
(a) Inductive effect : More the inductive effect (+I effect) of the R-group (s) attached to carbonyl carbon, lesser the charge on it and hence lesser the reactivity. Thus order of reactivity is ,

(b) Stearic effect : NUmber of R-groups , as well as their size, contribute to stearic hinderance to the attack of nucleophilie on the carbonyl carbon. Thus order of reactivity follows the order,

Thus we field that both of these two factors make aldehydes more reactive than ketones and out of all the aldehydes formaldehyde is most reactive.