In
organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...
, the carbon number of a compound is the number of
carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...
atoms in each molecule.
[Nava Dayan, Lambros Kromidas (ed.) ''Formulating, Packaging, and Marketing of Natural Cosmetic Products'' John Wiley & Sons, 2011;
; page 218 ]
The properties of
hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons are examples of group 14 hydrides. Hydrocarbons are generally colourless and Hydrophobe, hydrophobic; their odor is usually fain ...
s can be correlated with the carbon number, although the carbon number alone does not give an indication of the
saturation of the organic compound. When describing a particular molecule, the "carbon number" is also the ordinal position of a particular carbon atom in a chain.
Compounds by carbon number
See also
*
IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry
In chemical nomenclature, the IUPAC nomenclature of organic chemistry is a method of naming organic chemical compounds as recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). It is published in the '' Nomenclature of O ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carbon number