Pinacol is a white solid organic compound. It is a diol that has hydroxyl groups (-OH) on vicinal carbon atoms. Pinacol is a white solid organic compound. It is a diol that has hydroxyl groups (-OH) on vicinal carbon atoms. It may be produced by the pinacol coupling reaction from acetone: As a vicinal-diol, it can rearrange to pinacolone by the pinacol rearrangement, e.g. by heating with sulfuric acid: Pinacol can be used with borane and boron trichloride to produce useful synthetic intermediates such as pinacolborane, bis(pinacolato)diboron, and pinacolchloroborane.