Oxidation of tertiary alcohols Why is it that tertiary alcohols cannot be oxidized? I was told that it's because there is no hydrogen to remove, but I don't understand why another OH could not be formed where there is a C-H bond.
The meaning of the answer you've gotten, "it is because there is no hydrogen to remove", is with respect to oxidizing the carbon of the tertiary alcohol itself. You could oxidize the rest of the molecule into any number of things, but there is no way for the tertiary carbon to be further oxidized than the alcohol.