• Question: whats the diference between and alkane and an alkene, wich one is saturated and why is it saturated?

    Asked by markholmes2011 to Amy, Sarah, Will on 21 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Will Reynolds

      Will Reynolds answered on 21 Jun 2012:

      HI Mark. Awesome question! Both alkanes and alkenes are made up of carbon atoms joined together in long chains. These carbon chains also have hyrogen atoms surrounding them, hence why they are also called ‘hydrocarbons’. A Carbon atom can have a total of 4 bonds to other atoms. In an alkane each carbon atom has two seperate ‘single’ bonds to two other carbon atoms, and two bonds to hydrogen atoms. This is called ‘saturated’ which means that all of the carbons are saturated with hydrogen.

      Alkenes on the other hand contain so called ‘double’ bonds in which a carbon atom in the chain is conected to another carbon by two bonds, instead of one. This only leaves room for one hydrogen atom on those ‘double bonded’ carbons. This is called ‘unsaturated’ because the carbon chain does not contain the maximum amount of hydrogen possible. This is a bit hard to see without pictures so here are pictures of alkanes and alkenes. Hope this helps!

      Alkanes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkane

      Alkenes: http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkene

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