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The Chemistry Consortium
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Carbon (C) can form coalent bonds with other C atoms. These atoms form long chains which may be straight or branching. The bonds between these carbon atoms can be either single, double, or triple covalent bond(s). Carbon will bond easily with atoms of many other elements. Atoms other than C can appear at different places on the C chain. Naming hydrocarbons is really easy. It consists of 2 components - a prefix, and a suffix. The prefix determines how many carbon atoms are there, and the suffix determines if the compound has single, double, or triple covalent bonds. The first 8 prefixes are Meth-, Eth-, Prop-, But-, Pent-, Hex-, Hep-, and Oct-, representing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ,6, ,7 and 8 carbons respectively. Larger numbers' prefixes could be found in other reference sources. The study in this wev site doesn't require knowledge of more than 8 carbons. The suffixes has only 3 options : -ane, -ene, and -yne, which stands for only single, at least one double, and at least one triple covalent bonds respectively. Hydrocarbons are divided into 2 categories - saturated, and unsaturated. Saturated means that the suffix is -ane. Unsaturated means that the suffix is either -ene, or -yne. Polymers are very large molecules that are formed when many small organic molecules combine. These compounds can be very flexible & very strong.
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