Aliphatic Organic Nomenclature

This subsection will familiarize the reader with the naniing system tor some of die more common and simple organic groups, and present the salient characteristics of these groups. The basic system of aliphatic organic nomenclature is shown in Table 4. The prefix for the name is based on the number of carbons involved and remains the. same for each type of compound described. The suffix is dctcnnined by the type of compound and is independent of the number of carbons in the molecule. Tlius. mediane. methanol, methanol (formaldehyde), and methanoic (fonnic) acid represent an alkane, an alcohol, an aldehyde, and a carboxylic acid, respectively, each with one carbon per molecule. In contrast, methanol,... 

FLUORINECOMPOUNDS,ORGANIC - FLUORDIATED ALIPHATIC COMPOUNDS] (Volll) -and nomenclature [NOMENCLATURE] (Vol 17)... 

Over the years, many people contributed to the development of the field of organic chemistry. To better understand how this science provides so many useful items for our daily use, it is necessary to be familiar with some of the nomenclature of organic chemistry. There are two basic types of hydrocarbon substances, namely, aliphatic and aromatic. There are three basic types of aliphatic hydrocarbon molecules defined by the number of bonds involved in straight linear-chained molecules. If the basic structure of a hydrocarbon molecule is a ring instead of a straight chain, they are known as aromatic hydrocarbons, typified by the benzene ring. 

The aliphatic chain is referred to as saturated because all carbon atoms are linked to four other atoms (sp carbons in organic chemistry). When a carbon atom is linked to only three other atoms, one of the chemical bond has to be a double bond to respect the valency of 4, which is characteristic of carbon. In this case, the double bond links two carbons and it is noted C=C. The nomenclature used for saturated fatty acids refers to the number of carbon atoms, and to the lack of double bonds correspondingly, palmitic add, which is the saturated fatty acid with 16 carbons, is noted C16 0 (C16 for the carbon number, 0 for the number of double bond). You can train yourself to write the structure of the following fatty acids C9 0, C14 0, and C18 0. A list of biologically saturated fatty acids can be found in Table 1.2. Note that only the limited piece of information found in the first column is useful to draw the chemical structure of all these lipids. 

Aliphatic framework molecules most common in organic acids include alkanes (saturated hydrocarbons) and alkenes (unsaturated hydrocarbons). These saturated and unsaturated aliphatic carboxylic acids may be acyclic (straight or branched chains) or alicyclic (aliphatic rings). Acyclic aliphatic monocarboxylic acids are also referred to as fatty acids (Table 1). The first five saturated acids (formic to valeric) of this type are sometimes referred to as short-chain, low-molecular-weight, or volatile fatty acids. Although a nomenclature for these acids has been established by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (lUPAC), the convention of using the trivial names for the first five saturated acids has remained. Similarly, trivial names are used for the aliphatic dicarboxylic acids (Table 2) that are saturated with two to four carbon atoms (C2-C4) and unsaturated with four carbon atoms (C4). Alicyclic carboxylic acids contain one or more saturated or partially unsaturated rings. These acids most commonly occur... 

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