Hydroxyacetone, also known as acetol, is the organic chemical with the formula CH3C(O)CH2OH.

It is an α-hydroxyketone, also called a ketol, and is the simplest hydroxy ketone structure.

[4] Hydroxyacetone is commercially available, but it also may be synthesized on a laboratory scale by a substitution reaction on bromoacetone.

[5] It undergoes rapid polymerization, including forming a hemiacetal cyclic dimer.

Under alkaline conditions, it undergoes a rapid aldol condensation.