Acyclic Hydrocarbons

Rule A-1. Saturated Unbranched-chain Compounds and Univalent Radicals

1.1 - The first four saturated unbranched acyclic hydrocarbons are called methane, ethane, propane and butane. Names of the higher members of this series consist of a numerical term, followed by "-ane" with elision of terminal "a" from the numerical term. Examples of these names are shown in the table below. The generic name of saturated acyclic hydrocarbons (branched or unbranched) is "alkane".

Examples of names:

(n = total number of carbon atoms)

n	n
1 Methane	22 Docosane
2 Ethane	23 Tricosane
3 Propane	24 Tetracosane
4 Butane	25 Pentacosane
5 Pentane	26 Hexacosane
6 Hexane	27 Heptacosane
7 Heptane	28 Octacosane
8 Octane	29 Nonacosane
9 Nonane	30 Triacontane
10 Decane	31 Hentriacontane
11 Undecane	32 Dotriacontane
12 Dodecane	33 Tritriacontane
13 Tridecane	40 Tetracontane
14 Tetradecane	50 Pentacontane
15 Pentadecane	60 Hexacontane
16 Hexadecane	70 Heptacontane
17 Heptadecane	80 Octacontane
18 Octadecane	90 Nonacontane
19 Nonadecane	100 Hectane
20 Icosane	132 Dotriacontahectane
21 Henicosane

1.2 - Univalent radicals derived from saturated unbranched acyclic hydrocarbons by removal of hydrogen from a terminal carbon atom are named by replacing the ending "-ane" of the name of the hydrocarbon by "-yl". The carbon atom with the free valence is numbered as 1. As a class, these radicals are called normal, or unbranched chain, alkyls.

Examples to Rule A-1.2

Next:

Saturated Branched-chain Compounds and Univalent Radicals
Unsaturated Compounds and Univalent Radicals
Bivalent and Multivalent Radicals