In a branched alkane, an alkyl group is linked to the main Carbon chain.
Who does not wish to travel back in time to trace their great-great-grandparents. Unfortunately, none of us is Marty McFly (from Back to the Future franchise), and the only logical way to unveil your family history would be by tracing a family tree. The details of this tree have to be looked into carefully so that you may not end up declaring Hitler to be your Uncle. 🤭 You need to take similar care while studying the branching of alkanes.
A saturated hydrocarbon is known as an alkane, and it can be straight-chained, Linear, branched, or even cyclic.
An alkane with alkyl groups linked to its main carbon chain is a branched-chain alkane or branched alkane. Branched alkanes include carbon and hydrogen (C and H) atoms, and carbon atoms are only coupled to certain other carbons by single bonds. Still, the molecules have branches like methyl, ethyl, etc., and are thus not simple.
Starting with pentane as an alkane example, there are two alternative structures for this structure that are not straight-chain and are rather branched. These alternatives are termed structural isomers. They are multiple structures that can be formed with molecules having the same molecular formula.
For instance, here 2 -methylbutane and 2,2 - dimethylpropane or neopentane are the structural isomers of the given pentane. 2-methylbutane here is an easy-branched alkane example. However, the names of these structures are not something you can cram. These names are coined according to IUPAC rules. It's important to learn the rules for naming branched alkanes to create a universal standard for identifying chemicals to make communication easier.
Let's try understanding the naming of these branched alkanes with this isomer of hexane -
The IUPAC name of the branched alkane is 2,3-dimethylbutane.
1. How do you name branched alkanes?
2. What is straight and branched-chain alkane?
A saturated hydrocarbon is known as an alkane, and it can be straight-chained, Linear, branched, or even cyclic.
3. What is branched and unbranched?
An alkane with linked alkyl groups on its parent chain is called branching, where the ones with no link are called unbranched.
We hope you enjoyed studying this lesson and learned something cool about Branched Alkanes! Join our Discord community to get any questions you may have answered and to engage with other students just like you! Don't forget to download our App to experience our fun, VR classrooms - we promise, it makes studying much more fun! 😎