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Wednesday, December 17, 2014

Organic Chemistry - Form, Part 2 - Straight Chain Alkanes and Their Nomenclature

Greetings,

Alkanes are among the aliphatic hydrocarbons which consist of "simple" and "branched" chain molecules.  This post discusses the simple alkane hydrocarbon form and the naming convention for them.   From my last posts, the diligent reader will remember that alkanes are the most basic of the aliphatic group; consisting only of single covalent bonds.

The name of an alkane always ends with the suffix, "-ane".  The prefix of each name indicates the number of carbon atoms in the molecule chain.

The graphic illustration indicates that the Lewis structure does not indicate the true structure of the "straight" chain hydrocarbons.  Actually, the straight chain hydrocarbons, while obviously not linear, are definitely "more straight" than their branched chain hydrocarbon "cousins".  Branched chain hydrocarbons will be covered in my next post.

As always, thank you for reading!

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