Dehydration Reaction (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In chemistry and the biological sciences, a dehydration reaction is usually defined as a chemical reaction that involves the loss of water from the reacting molecule. Dehydration reactions are a subset of elimination reactions. Because the hydroxyl group is a poor leaving group, having an Bronsted acid catalyst often helps by protonating the hydroxyl group to give the better leaving group, -OH2+.