Geminal diols

chemical compound

Saxitoxin (STX) is a potent neurotoxin and the best-known paralytic shellfish toxin. Ingestion of saxitoxin by humans, usually by consumption of shellfish contaminated by toxic algal blooms, is responsible for the illness known as paralytic shellfish poisoning (PSP).

Ninhydrin (2,2-dihydroxyindane-1,3-dione) is an organic compound with the formula C6H4(CO)2C(OH)2. It is used to detect ammonia and amines. Upon reaction with these amines, ninhydrin gets converted into deep blue or purple derivatives, which are called Ruhemann's purple. Ninhydrin is most commonly used to detect fingerprints in forensic cases, as the terminal amines of lysine residues in peptides and proteins sloughed off in fingerprints react with ninhydrin.

Methanediol, also known as formaldehyde monohydrate or methylene glycol, is an organic compound with chemical formula . It is the simplest geminal diol. In aqueous solutions it coexists with oligomers (short polymers). The compound is closely related and convertible to the industrially significant derivatives paraformaldehyde (), formaldehyde (), and 1,3,5-trioxane ().

any organic compound containing 2 hydroxyl groups bound to the same carbon atom

Dodecahydroxycyclohexane is an organic compound with molecular formula or or . It is a sixfold geminal diol with a cyclohexane backbone and can be regarded as a sixfold hydrate of cyclohexanehexone ().

chemical compound

Decahydroxycyclopentane is an organic compound with formula or . It is a fivefold geminal diol on a cyclopentane backbone.

Phenylmethanediol is an organic compound that is a geminal diol, the hydrate of benzaldehyde. It is a short-lived intermediate in some chemical reactions, such as oxidations of toluene and benzaldehyde and the reduction of benzoic acid.