what are the saturated hydrocarbon? give examples
Answers
Explanation:
Oil is composed of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons. The oil-derived fossil fuels propane, butane, and octane are examples of saturated hydrocarbons. At one time chemists divided all compounds into two classes: inorganic and organic.
Answer:
A Saturated hydrocarbon is a hydrocarbon in which all the carbon-carbon bonds are single bonds. A hydrocarbon is an organic compound whose only constituents are carbon and hydrogen. As the name suggests, saturated hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons in which all the carbon atoms are bonded to four other atoms and are ‘saturated’, implying that no carbon-carbon multiple bonds exist in these organic compounds.
Generally, the term ‘saturated hydrocarbon’ is used to refer to alkanes – acyclic hydrocarbons containing only sp3 hybridized carbon atoms. The general formula of an alkane is CnH2n+2. An illustration describing the structure of a propane molecule (C3H8) is provided below.

It can be observed that a propane molecule is ‘saturated’ with hydrogen atoms and cannot accommodate any more in the parent chain. A few other examples of saturated hydrocarbons are listed below.
Butane (C4H10)
Octane (C8H18)
Cyclohexane (C6H12)
Cyclopropane (C3H6)
Cycloalkanes are the alkanes that have a monocyclic ring structure. Since all the carbon-carbon bonds in cycloalkanes are single bonds, they are considered to be saturated hydrocarbons. Therefore, the general formula of a saturated hydrocarbon can be written as CnH(2n + 2 – 2r), where ‘r’ is the total number of rings in the molecule.