hydrocarbon

hydrocarbon

any organic compound containing only carbon and hydrogen, such as the alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, terpenes, and arenes

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Hydrocarbon

(HC)

Chemical compound consisting entirely of carbon and hydrogen.

Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

hydrocarbon

[¦hī·drə′kär·bən]

(organic chemistry)

One of a very large group of chemical compounds composed only of carbon and hydrogen; the largest source of hydrocarbons is from petroleum crude oil.

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Hydrocarbon

 

any of a class of organic compounds consisting only of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Depending on their structure, a distinction is made between acyclic, or aliphatic, hydrocarbons, in which the carbon atoms are bound to one another in linear or branched chains, and isocyclic, or carbocyclic, hydrocarbons, the molecules of which form rings consisting of three or more carbon atoms. Isocyclic hydrocarbons in turn are divided into alicyclic and aromatic hydrocarbons.

Acyclic hydrocarbons are divided into saturated compounds, which contain only single bonds (the parent compound of the family being methane), and unsaturated compounds, which contain double and triple bonds. Unsaturated hydrocarbons may have one double bond (olefins), two double bonds (dienes), or one triple bond, as in acetylene. The distinction between saturated and unsaturated compounds also applies to alicyclic hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons form homologous series, which are typified by the regularity of the differences between the various members’ physical and chemical properties.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.