It is important to understand that this reaction only succeeds if the alkyl halide is primary. The product of this reaction sequence is an ether, ROCH 2 R', so we have a synthetic method for making an ether from two alcohols, with the important restriction that one of the alcohols is primary. There is also an acid catalyzed reaction which makes a symmetrical ether, one in which the two alkyl groups attached to the oxygen are identical. A molecule of water is lost and the ether is formed from two molecules of the alcohol. Again, it is important to realize that this reaction can only be used on primary alcohols and that the ether produced this way is symmetrical.
Ethers are generally unreactive compounds.
The C-O bond is polar, but breaking it is difficult. We will look at the reasons for this later. The lack of reactivity of the ether functional group is one reason for the common use of ethers as solvents. A solvent has to dissolve the reactants to be useful, and it also must not react with the reactants present. In many cases, ethers meet these requirements well.