Lesson 3.1: Carbon Chains

Carbon is an important building block of both living and non-living things on Earth. Many of the items you see around you and even your body itself are made up of carbon-based compounds.  These consist of carbon chains of various lengths. The compound properties depend on the number of carbon atoms within the chain. The study of compounds composed of carbon is known as organic chemistry.

• Read pages 108 to 110 of the textbook. Answer the questions as you encounter them.
  
  Check your answers with those in the “Practice Answers” in the online course.

Hydrocarbons are the simplest carbon compounds. As the name implies, these compounds contain carbon and hydrogen. The simplest hydrocarbons are alkanes; they contain only single bonds between atoms.

• Read pages 111 to 113 of the textbook. Answer the questions as you encounter them.
  
  Check your answers with those in the “Practice Answers” in the online course.

Alkanes are named using prefixes to indicate the number of carbon atoms in the chain and using the suffix -ane to indicate that this family of compounds has only single bonds.

• Read pages 114 and 115 of the textbook. Then, answer Practice questions 9 to 14 on page 116.
  
  Check your answers with those in the “Practice Answers ” in the online course.

Not all alkanes contain straight chains. Alkanes that contain a number of short chains attached to a parent chain are called branched alkanes. These can become quite complex. Each new branch attached to the parent chain gives the compound its own set of properties.

• Read pages 116 to 120 of the textbook. Start at “Branched Alkanes” and end at “3.1 Summary”.  Answer the questions as you encounter them.
  
  Check your answers with those in the “Practice Answers” in the online course.

• Read “3.1 Summary” on page 120 of the textbook. Then, complete “3.1 Questions” on page 121.
  
  Check your answers with those in the “Practice Answers” in the online course.

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Go to Assignment 3.1: Carbon Chains.