Elements Of Hydrocarbons

All matter in the universe is made up of smaller pieces. Materials that cannot be broken down by physical or chemical means are called elements. The smallest particle of a specific element is called an atom of that element. Atoms are made up of nuclei which contain protons and neutrons and an area surrounding the nucleus where electrons exist. Protons are positively charged particles and the number of protons that an atom contains defines what element it is. Neutrons are neutral particles that help to hold the nucleus together. Two atoms of the same element may have different numbers of neutrons and thus are different isotopes of that element. Since all atoms are electrically neutral, an atom has the same number of negatively charged particles,

Hydrocarbons make up almost all of the fossil fuels used everyday. Hydrocarbons are split into 3 groups, the alkanes, the alkenes, and the alkynes. Alkanes are all the hydrocarbons with only single bonds between the carbons. These molecules all end in the suffix ‘ane.’ Alkenes are the hydrocarbons with at least one double bond between a pair of carbon atoms. These molecules end in ‘ene.’ Alkynes are hydrocarbons that have at least one triple bond between a pair of carbons and end in ‘yne.’ Each of these endings are added to a prefix that indicates how many carbon atoms are in each molecule of a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons can also form closed ring systems which are denoted by the addition of the prefix

During the reaction the atoms are conserved as no atoms are created, destroyed or changed into different atoms. One class of chemical reaction is combustion reactions which are reactions between compounds and oxygen. The combustion of hydrocarbons occurs when a hydrocarbon reacts with oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water. In these reactions there are always two reagents (starting materials) and two products. The combustion reaction can be described in words or be shortened to a chemical equation that just includes the reagents and products. An unbalanced chemical equation just states these parts of the reaction while a balanced chemical equation gives the ratio of how much of each part is required for the reaction to occur completely and the atoms to be conserved. The ratios between the parts of a balanced chemical reaction can be scaled to work with different amounts of the reagents and in this particular case of combustion the hydrocarbon being