 In this video I'm going to give you a bit of extra information about types of alcohols. Alcohols can be classified as primary, secondary or tertiary, depending on where the alcohol is attached to the carbon chain. These differences in structure affect the way the molecule reacts, as you'll discover when we start looking at reactions. A primary alcohol has the OH group on an end carbon. This means that the carbon to which the OH is attached is only attached to one other carbon. This is one butanol, an example of a primary alcohol. A secondary alcohol has the OH group on a middle carbon. This means that if you look at the carbon to which the OH group is attached, it's attached to two other carbons. This is three pentanol or pentan-3ol, and that's an example of a secondary alcohol. Finally, a tertiary alcohol has the OH group on a middle carbon that has another substituent attached to it. This means the carbon to which the OH is attached is attached to three other carbons. This one is called two-methyl butan-2ol. Note that we don't specify in the name whether the alcohol is primary, secondary or tertiary. You have to draw the structure out to figure that out.