Naming Alkanes - Video Tutorials & Practice Problems
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Rules for Naming Alkanes
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In this video we're going to take a look at naming alkanes. Now, in naming organic compounds, we use the IUPAC method of nomenclature or naming system. IUPAC stands for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. This is just our systematic set of rules when it comes to naming different organic compounds. Now, starting with naming alkanes, it's first important to remember our alkane prefixes. We're gonna say alkane names are based on the number of carbons present in a molecule, and end with ane. Alcanes end with ane, that's how it works. Now, we use the following prefixes to name the base of the alkane. So if we take a look here at our alkane prefixes, it goes from 1 carbon all the way up to 10. Now, of course you can have a chain that has greater than 10, You could have 11, 12, 13. But for this level of chemistry, we work within our range of 1 to 10. For those of you who are gonna go later on into organic 1 and organic 2, you go into larger chains where you're gonna go beyond 10, depending on your professor's, inclinations. So here we're going to say if you have one carbon, then your prefix is Meth. So a one carbon alkane will be called Methane. Remember, this is the prefix that end with ane. Two carbons, the prefix would be eth, so a 2 carbon alkane is ethane. 3 would be prop, propane. 4 would be but, butane. 5 carbons. Now here at this point, some of it makes sense because we know pentagram, 5 sides. We're gonna say pentagon, 5 sides. So 5 is pent, pentane, hexagon, 6 is hexane, 7 carbons is hept, heptane, 8 carbons is oct, octane. 9 carbons is non, so this is a little weird, nonane. And then 10 carbons is decane. So some of these terms we know decane, decathlon, we know it runs with it associates with the number of 10. Right. So just remember, these are our numerical prefixes or alkane prefixes, the endings of them would be -ane because they represent alkanes. Alright. So before we start into naming, it's important to recall these alkane prefixes.
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Naming Alkanes Example
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Here it says, name the following alkanes. All of them are alkanes because all of them are carbons single bonded to one another. Now remember, since they're alkanes, their endings would be -ane. And we'd say that their prefix is based on a number of carbons. For this first one, it's only 1 carbon, and we know that the prefix would be meth, so the name of this alkane is methane. For the next one, how many carbons do we have? We have 1, 2, 3, 4 carbons. The prefix would be but. So this is butane, and then here we have it in its skeletal formula, so remember, each line connects 2 carbons together, so so there's a carbon here, here, here, here, here, and here. How many carbons is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 6 would mean that our prefix is hex. So the name of this alkane will be hexane. So, just remember, they're all alkane, so their endings are -ane, and then you just have to remember what is your alkane prefix based on the number of carbons present. Putting those together gives us our alkane name.