What is the difference between 1,4-butanediol and 1,4-butanedisulfonate?
Thank you.

Well a butanediol is an acohol is structured as follows (two -OH groups):

  H
  O
  |
H-C-H
  |
H-C-H
  |
H-C-H
  |
H-C-H
  |
  O
  |
  H
   
wheras a sulfonate contains two S03H- groups:

  H
  |
  O    
  |    
O=S=O  
  |    
H-C-H
  |  
H-C-H
  |  
H-C-H
  |  
H-C-H
  |  
O=S=O
  |  
  O  
  |
  H  

Sorry about the poor formatting. I hope the difference is still clear.

till-ga

The answer is specific and true no doubt but do the chemicals share
anything. The comment at the end better answers my question.

Hello,

I'm posting this as comment and not as answer. 

In spite of the similarity of the name 1,4-butanediol and
1,4-butanedisulfonate are very different molecules. Both are 4 carbon
chains but with very dissimilar ends. Check out about this over here.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&threadm=B6339E36.102CC%25chemgirl_kt%40hotmail.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D1,4-butanedisulfonate%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3Dutf-8%26selm%3DB6339E36.102CC%2525chemgirl_kt%2540hotmail.com%26rnum%3D1

Check out a similar thread on Google groups about this.
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=1,4-butanedisulfonate&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&selm=B6567109.10999%25chemgirl_kt%40hotmail.com&rnum=3

I hope this helps.
Thanks
netcrazy