Hydrocarbons Part - 2.

                                    Important Topics

Aliphatic Compounds

In organic chemistry, hydrocarbons (compounds composed of carbon and hydrogen) are divided into two classes: aromatic compounds and aliphatic compounds also known as non-aromatic compounds. Aliphatics can be cyclic, but only aromatic compounds contain an especially stable ring of atoms, such as benzene.

Aliphatic compounds can be saturated, joined by single bonds (alkanes), or unsaturated, with double bonds (alkenes) or triple bonds (alkynes). Besides hydrogen, other elements can be bound to the carbon chain, the most common being oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and chlorine.

The least complex aliphatic compound is methane (CH₄). 

Aliphatic compounds can be saturated, like hexane, or unsaturated, like hexene and hexyne. Open-chain compounds (whether straight or branched) contain no rings of any type, and are thus aliphatic.

Aromatic Compounds

Sweet or pleasant smelling compounds are called 'Aromatic compounds'.An aromatic hydrocarbon or arene (or sometimes aryl hydrocarbon) is a hydrocarbon with sigma bonds and delocalized pi electrons between carbon atoms forming a circle. In contrast, aliphatic hydrocarbons lack this delocalization. The term "aromatic" was assigned before the physical mechanism determining aromaticity was discovered; the term was coined as such simply because many of the compounds have a sweet or pleasant odour. The configuration of six carbon atoms in aromatic compounds is known as a benzene ring, after the simplest possible such hydrocarbon, benzene. Aromatic hydrocarbons can be monocyclic (MAH) or polycyclic (PAH).

Some non-benzene-based compounds called heteroarenes, which follow Hückel's rule (for monocyclic rings: when the number of its π electrons equals 4n + 2, where n = 0, 1, 2, 3, ...), are also called aromatic compounds. In these compounds, at least one carbon atom is replaced by one of the heteroatoms oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur. Examples of non-benzene compounds with aromatic properties are furan, a heterocyclic compound with a five-membered ring that includes a single oxygen atom, and pyridine, a heterocyclic compound with a six-membered ring containing one nitrogen atom.

Alicyclic Compounds

Aliphatic compounds in cyclic form are known as Alicyclic compounds.An alicyclic compound is an organic compound that is both aliphatic and cyclic. They contain one or more all-carbon rings which may be eithersaturated or unsaturated, but do not have aromatic character. Alicyclic compounds may have one or more aliphatic side chains attached.

The simplest alicyclic compounds are the monocyclic cycloalkanes: cyclopropane, cyclobutane, cyclopentane, cyclohexane, cycloheptane,cyclooctane, and so on. Bicyclic alkanes include bicycloundecane, decalin, and housane.. Polycyclic alkanes include cubane, basketane, and tetrahedrane.

Spiro compounds have two or more rings that are connected through only one carbon atom.

The mode of ring-closing in the formation of many alicyclic compounds can be predicted by Baldwin's rules.Otto Wallach, a German chemist, received the 1910 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds.

Functional Groups

In organic chemistry, functional groups are specific groups (moieties) of atoms or bonds within molecules that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reaction(s) regardless of the size of the molecule. This allows for systematic prediction of chemical reactions and behavior of chemical compounds and design of chemical syntheses. Furthermore, the reactivity of a functional group can be modified by other functional groups nearby. In organic synthesis, functional group interconversion is one of the basic types of transformations.

Functional groups are groups of one or more atoms of distinctive chemical properties no matter what they are attached to. The atoms of functional groups are linked to each other and to the rest of the molecule by covalent bonds.

 For repeating units of polymers, functional groups attach to their nonpolar core of carbon atoms and thus add chemical character to carbon chains. Functional groups

can also be charged, e.g. in carboxylate salts (–COO⁻), which turns the molecule into a polyatomic ion or a complex ion. Functional groups binding to a central atom in a coordination complex are called ligands. Complexation and solvation are also caused by specific interactions of functional groups. In the common rule of thumb "like dissolves like", it is the shared or mutually well-interacting functional groups which give rise to solubility. For example, sugar dissolves in water because both share the hydroxyl functional group (–OH) and hydroxyls interact strongly with each other. Plus, when functional groups are more electronegative than atoms they attach to, the functional groups will become polar, and the otherwise nonpolar molecules containing these functional groups become polar and so become soluble in some aqueous environment.