Carbon is tetravalent : Bonding Possibilities:

H
a) Four single covalent bonds ,
C
H H
H
b) A double bond and two single covalent bond s ( C C
c) A single covalent bond and a triple bond (–C C), or two double
bonds (C = C = C) with its own atoms or atoms of other elements – to
satisfy its tetravalency.
Hydrocarbons
• What are hydrocarbons?
The compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen in their molecules
are called hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons are classified into two categories known as open chain
hydrocarbons and closed chain hydrocarbons. Open chain hydrocarbons
are also called aliphatic hydrocarbons or acyclic hydrocarbons.
Open and closed chain hydrocarbons
Let us observe the following structural formulae of different
hydrocarbons.
1) CH3–CH2–CH2–CH2–CH3 n-pentane, a straight chain compound
2) CH3–CH–CH2–CH3. Iso pentane, a branched chain compound
|
CH3
3) CH2 – CH2 cyclo pentane, a cyclic compound or a ring compound
| |
CH2 CH2
\ /
CH2
• Do all the above compounds have equal number of C and H atoms?
In the first example you will notice that all carbons are linked to one
another resulting a linear structure, where as in the second example four
carbons are linked in linear way and the fifth carbon is linked to the parent
chain resulting a branch. In the third example we find that carbon chain is
closed to form a ring. So, it is a closed chain hydrocarbon or ring
hydrocarbon.
A linear hydrocarbon is one in which all but the
two end carbons (called the terminal carbons)
are attached to two other carbon atoms. We have
to be careful with the term linear because the actual
shape of the octane molecule is anything but a
straight line.

Linear therefore refers to how the carbon atoms

are connected, not to the actual shape of the
molecule.

A branched hydrocarbon has at least one carbon

atom attached to more than two other carbon
atoms. You can also think of a branched
hydrocarbon as having a backbone with a smaller
branch growing off this backbone. The backbone—
called the main chain—is the longest continuous
chain in the molecule (not necessarily drawn in a
straight line). The shorter chain or chains are the
branches. In our example, the main chain is eight
carbons long, which means its chain length is 8, and
the branch has a chain length of 2:
Molecular formulae

A molecular formula simply counts the numbers of

each sort of atom present in the molecule, but tells
you nothing about the way they are joined together.

For example, the molecular formula of butane is

C4H10, and the molecular formula of ethanol is
C2H6O.

Molecular formulae are very rarely used in organic

chemistry, because they don't give any useful
information about the bonding in the molecule.
About the only place where you might come across
them is in equations for the combustion of simple
hydrocarbons, for example:

In cases like this, the bonding in the organic

molecule isn't important.

Structural formulae

A structural formula shows how the various atoms

are bonded. There are various ways of drawing this
and you will need to be familiar with all of them.

For example, this is a model of methane together

with its displayed formula:

Notice that the way the methane is drawn bears no

resemblance to the actual shape of the molecule.
Methane isn't flat with 90° bond angles. This
mismatch between what you draw and what the
molecule actually looks like can lead to problems if
you aren't careful.
The commonest way to draw structural formulae

For anything other than the most simple molecules, drawing a fully
displayed formula is a bit of a bother - especially all the carbon-hydrogen
bonds. You can simplify the formula by writing, for example, CH3 or
CH2 instead of showing all these bonds.

So for example, ethanoic acid would be shown in a fully displayed form and
a simplified form as:

You could even condense it further to CH3COOH, and would probably do

this if you had to write a simple chemical equation involving ethanoic acid.
You do, however, lose something by condensing the acid group in this way,
because you can't immediately see how the bonding works.

You still have to be careful in drawing structures in this way. Remember

from above that these two structures both represent the same molecule:

The next three structures all represent butane.

All of these are just versions of four carbon atoms joined up in a line. The
only difference is that there has been some rotation about some of the
carbon-carbon bonds. You can see this in a couple of models.
Not one of the structural formulae accurately represents the shape of
butane. The convention is that we draw it with all the carbon atoms in a
straight line - as in the first of the structures above.

This is even more important when you start to have branched chains of
carbon atoms. The following structures again all represent the same
molecule - 2-methylbutane.

The two structures on the left are fairly obviously the same - all we've done
is flip the molecule over. The other one isn't so obvious until you look at the
structure in detail. There are four carbons joined up in a row, with a
CH3 group attached to the next-to-end one. That's exactly the same as the
other two structures. If you had a model, the only difference between these
three diagrams is that you have rotated some of the bonds and turned the
model around a bit.

To overcome this possible confusion, the convention is that you always

look for the longest possible chain of carbon atoms, and then draw it
horizontally. Anything else is simply hung off that chain.

It doesn't matter in the least whether you draw any side groups pointing up
or down. All of the following represent exactly the same molecule.

If you made a model of one of them, you could turn it into any other one
simply by rotating one or more of the carbon-carbon bonds.
Skeletal formulae

In a skeletal formula, all the hydrogen atoms are removed from carbon
chains, leaving just a carbon skeleton with functional groups attached to it.

For example, we've just been talking about butan-2-ol. The normal
structural formula and the skeletal formula look like this:

In a skeletal diagram of this sort

• there is a carbon atom at each junction between bonds in a chain

and at the end of each bond (unless there is something else there
already - like the -OH group in the example);
• there are enough hydrogen atoms attached to each carbon to make
the total number of bonds on that carbon up to 4.

Beware! Diagrams of this sort take practice to interpret correctly - and may
well not be acceptable to your examiners (see below).

There are, however, some very common cases where they are frequently
used. These cases involve rings of carbon atoms which are surprisingly
awkward to draw tidily in a normal structural formula.

Cyclohexane, C6H12, is a ring of carbon atoms each with two hydrogens

attached. This is what it looks like in both a structural formula and a skeletal
formula.

And this is cyclohexene, which is similar but contains a double bond:

But the commonest of all is the benzene ring, C6H6, which has a special
symbol of its own.