Alkanes are also referred to as saturated hydrocarbons. Explain the meaning of the term hydrocarbon. Why are alkanes called saturated hydrocarbons?

Video transcript

Welcome back, everyone. Select all statements correctly defining a hydrocarbon and explain why alkenes are classified as saturated hydrocarbons. So we're given five statements. Let's begin with the first one. The first statement states that a hydrocarbon is a compound consisting solely of carbon and hydrogen atoms, which is basically correct. The reason why it's correct is simply because we can see that already implied in the name hydro carbon, hydrogen and carbon, right? So we can essentially state that the first statement is correct. Now, the second statement reads, saturated hydrocarbons contain one or more double bonds between carbon atoms. And we want to recall that saturated means only having single carbon hygen and carbon carbon bonds. There should be no double or triple bonds because double and triple bonds represent pi bonds which involve unsaturated. So the second statement is incorrect, saturated hydrocarbons do not contain any double bonds. Statement number three reads, L canes are classified L. Canes are called saturated hydrocarbons because they contain only single bonds between carbon atoms and are fully saturated with hydrogen atoms, which is exactly what we discussed. Canes are saturated if they only contain single bonds. Now, statement number four a hydrocarbon is a compound that contains carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen atoms and may include other elements such as oxygen or nitrogen. This statement is incorrect and we know that because statement number one was very similar, a hydrocarbon is basically a compound consisting of carbon and hydrogen atoms only and it cannot have any other elements involved. The final statement which is number five states that saturated hydrocarbons are characterized by having the maximum number of hydrogen atoms per carbon atom with no double or triple bonds, which is of course correct. Right. We know that we only want to have single bonds. And whenever we have single bonds only, we basically maximize the number of carbon hydrogen bonds or the number of hydrogen atoms in the structure. So we can state that for this problem statements. 13 and five are correct and that would be our final answer. Thank you for watching.