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In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. [ 1 ] : 620 Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides . Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and hydrophobic ; their odor is usually faint, and may be similar to that of gasoline or lighter fluid .
Cyanobacteria such as these carry out photosynthesis.Their emergence foreshadowed the evolution of many photosynthetic plants and oxygenated Earth's atmosphere.. Biological carbon fixation, or сarbon assimilation, is the process by which living organisms convert inorganic carbon (particularly carbon dioxide, CO 2) to organic compounds.
Absent oxygenates, fuel combustion is usually incomplete, and the exhaust stream pollutes the air with carbon monoxide, soot particles, aromatic and polyaromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrated polyaromatic hydrocarbons. [3] The most common oxygenates are either alcohols or ethers, but ketones and aldehydes are also included in this distinction. [4]
Isoprenes in animals form the important steroid structural (cholesterol) and steroid hormone compounds; and in plants form terpenes, terpenoids, some alkaloids, and a class of hydrocarbons called biopolymer polyisoprenoids present in the latex of various species of plants, which is the basis for making rubber. Biologists usually classify the ...
One major distinction is between natural and synthetic compounds. Organic compounds can also be classified or subdivided by the presence of heteroatoms, e.g., organometallic compounds, which feature bonds between carbon and a metal, and organophosphorus compounds, which feature bonds between carbon and a phosphorus. [citation needed]
One of the principal methods for alkene synthesis in the laboratory is the elimination reaction of alkyl halides, alcohols, and similar compounds. Most common is the β-elimination via the E2 or E1 mechanism. [26] A commercially significant example is the production of vinyl chloride.
Most known compounds contain hydrogen, not as H 2, but as covalently bonded H atoms. This interaction is the basis of organic chemistry and biochemistry.Hydrogen forms many compounds with carbon, called the hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are called organic compounds.
In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin (a historical trivial name that also has other meanings), is an acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which all the carbon–carbon bonds are single . [ 1 ]