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Why are carboxylic acids more acidic than alcohols?

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oxidation of alcohols — carboxylic acid Alcohols may be oxidized to give aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids. The oxidation of organic compounds generally increases the number of bonds from carbon to oxygen, and it may decrease the number of bonds to hydrogen.

Carboxylic acids are stronger acids than alcohols primarily due to the stability of the resulting anion after the loss of a proton.

When an alcohol donates a proton, it forms an alkoxide ion ( $R O^{-}$ ), which has only one possible structure. In contrast, when a carboxylic acid donates a proton, it forms a carboxylate ion ( $R C O O^{-}$ ). This ion is significantly more stable because of resonance, a phenomenon where valence electrons are delocalized across multiple atoms.

Because two resonance structures can be drawn for the carboxylate ion, the negative charge is dispersed rather than concentrated on a single oxygen atom. Since the stability of an anion directly determines the strength of its parent acid, the resonance-stabilized carboxylate ion makes the carboxylic acid a much stronger acid than the corresponding alcohol.1