*** Welcome to piglix ***

Alkynes


In organic chemistry, an alkyne is an unsaturated hydrocarbon containing at least one carbon—carbon triple bond. The simplest acyclic alkynes with only one triple bond and no other functional groups form a homologous series with the general chemical formula CnH2n−2. Alkynes are traditionally known as acetylenes, although the name acetylene also refers specifically to C2H2, known formally as ethyne using IUPAC nomenclature. Like other hydrocarbons, alkynes are generally hydrophobic but tend to be more reactive.

Alkynes are characteristically more unsaturated than alkenes. Thus they add two equivalents of bromine whereas an alkene adds only one equivalent in the reaction. Other reactions are listed below. In some reactions, alkynes are less reactive than alkenes. For example, in a molecule with an -ene and an -yne group, addition occurs preferentially at the -ene. Possible explanations involve the two π-bonds in the alkyne delocalising, which would reduce the energy of the π-system or the stability of the intermediates during the reaction. They show greater tendency to polymerize or oligomerize than alkenes do. The resulting polymers, called polyacetylenes (which do not contain alkyne units) are conjugated and can exhibit semiconducting properties.

In acetylene, the H–C≡C bond angles are 180°. By virtue of this bond angle, alkynes are rod-like. Correspondingly, cyclic alkynes are rare. Benzyne is highly unstable. The C≡C bond distance of 121 picometers is much shorter than the C=C distance in alkenes (134 pm) or the C–C bond in alkanes (153 pm).


...
Wikipedia

...