Cyclopropane is an interesting hydrocarbon. Instead of having three carbons in a row, the three carbons form a ring, as shown in this perspective drawing (see Figure 2.18 for a prior example of this kind of drawing):
Cyclopropane was at one time used as an anesthetic, but its use was discontinued, in part because it is highly flammable. (a) How does it differ from that of propane?

Question

Cyclopropane is an interesting hydrocarbon. Instead of having three carbons in a row, the three carbons form a ring, as shown in this perspective drawing (see Figure 2.18 for a prior example of this kind of drawing):

Chemical structures of oxirane and ethanol, illustrating organic compounds.

Cyclopropane was at one time used as an anesthetic, but its use was discontinued, in part because it is highly flammable. (a) How does it differ from that of propane?

Accepted Answer

welcome back everyone. We have ethylene oxide known as oxygen. Shown by the chemical structure below. As the important molecule used as a precursor to several other compounds. Instead of having two carbon atoms and one oxygen atom in a row, the three atoms form a ring. It was used in World War One to produce the coolant ethylene glycol and for the production of mustard gas, which was a chemical weapon. So we need to determine how the structure of ethylene oxide differs from the structure of ethanol. So again, ethylene oxide is our Ox Irene and were given the structures of oxygen as well as ethanol below. So we should recall that at each point of our structure, we have carbon atoms and right now we can count 12 carbon atoms in oxytocin. So because we recall that carbon must have a full octet, meaning it should have four bonds to other atoms. We can say that this carbon here is currently bonded to one atom here, which is an oxygen and this carbon here which is a carbon. So that would be two atoms so far. And we should recall that there are implied hydrogen in the structure to fulfill our carbons octet. And so this top carbon here is bonded to two bonds where it has hydrogen bonds. And so that would complete the four bonds needed to make this carbon stable. And that would apply to this carbon as well, since it's also bonded to two atoms just like this carbon was. So this one would also be bonded to two other hydrogen. And so that means we can write out our chemical formula where we can say we have C. Two, we have a church four. Since we understand that we have two implied bonds to hydrogen for each of our carbons here, so we can just draw those in for clarity. And then that would just leave us with oh, to complete our molecular formula here and sorry about that. So, C H C two, H 40 for oxygen. Now we want to compare this to the molecular formula for ethanol. To explain how our structures defer. So for ethanol, we want to recognize that we have one carbon here bonded to this carbon. So that's two carbon so far. And now we have this carbon which is bonded to oxygen which is bonded to hydrogen. And so that would give us C2. Now for each of these carbons, we want to recall that this carbon here is only bonded to this carbon. So that's just one other atom, meaning we have three implied hydrogen bonds here. So we have three implied hydrogen that are bonded to this carbon, that would give us a three so far. Whereas this carbon is bonded to this carbon and then this oxygen meaning to atoms where we would recall that we have to implied bonds here. So that would just be two bonds to each year. So we should recognize this group as a metal group because its CH three. And then this is just CH two. So because we have a church two plus H three, that gives us a church six for our molecular formula, So we would have C two H six and then that just leaves us with our oxygen atom. And so based on these molecular formulas, we can say that therefore our ox serene has to hydrogen atoms less than ethanol and therefore a different skeletal structure. We also can recognize that we have an alcohol group here, whereas here we just have an oxygen not bonded to hydrogen. So recall that this is an alcohol group. So for our final answer, we're just going to highlight our statement that we wrote out here on the right and this is going to complete this example as our final answer explaining how these structures differ. So I hope that everything that I reviewed was clear. If you have any questions, please leave them down below and I will see everyone in the next practice video.

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Cycloalkanes

Flammability

Structural Isomers