Alkene

In organic chemistry, an alkene is an unsaturated hydrocarbon that contains at least one carbon–carbon double bond. The words alkene and olefin are often used interchangeably (see nomenclature section below). Acyclic alkenes, with only one double bond and no other functional groups, known as mono-enes, form a homologous series of hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n. Alkenes have two hydrogen atoms fewer than the corresponding alkane (with the same number of carbon atoms). The simplest alkene, ethylene (C2H4), with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) name ethene, is the organic compound produced on the largest scale industrially. Aromatic compounds are often drawn as cyclic alkenes, but their structure and properties are different and they are not considered to be alkenes. Like a single covalent bond, double bonds can be described in terms of overlapping atomic orbitals, except that, unlike a single bond (which consists of a single sigma bond), a 'carbon–carbon double bond'(c-c)consists of one sigma bond and one pi bond. This double bond is stronger than a single covalent bond (611 kJ/mol for C=C vs. 347 kJ/mol for C–C) and also shorter, with an average bond length of 1.33 ångströms (133 pm). Each carbon of the double bond uses its three sp2 hybrid orbitals to form sigma bonds to three atoms (the other carbon and two hydrogen atoms). The unhybridized 2p atomic orbitals, which lie perpendicular to the plane created by the axes of the three sp² hybrid orbitals, combine to form the pi bond. This bond lies outside the main C–C axis, with half of the bond on one side of the molecule and half on the other. With a strength of 65 kcal/mol, the pi bond is significantly weaker than the sigma bond. Rotation about the carbon–carbon double bond is restricted because it incurs an energetic cost to break the alignment of the p orbitals on the two carbon atoms. As a consequence, substituted alkenes may exist as one of two isomers, called cis or trans isomers. More complex alkenes may be named with the E–Z notation for molecules with three or four different substituents (side groups). For example, of the isomers of butene, the two methyl groups of (Z)-but-2-ene (a.k.a. cis-2-butene) appear on the same side of the double bond, and in (E)-but-2-ene (a.k.a. trans-2-butene) the methyl groups appear on opposite sides. These two isomers of butene are slightly different in their chemical and physical properties. Twisting to a 90° dihedral angle between two of the groups on the carbons requires less energy than the strength of a pi bond, and the bond still holds. The carbons of the double bond become pyramidal, which allows preserving some p orbital alignment—and hence pi bonding. The other two attached groups remain at a larger dihedral angle. This contradicts a common textbook assertion that the two carbons retain their planar nature when twisting, in which case the p orbitals would rotate enough away from each other to be unable to sustain a pi bond. In a 90°-twisted alkene, the p orbitals are only misaligned by 42° and the strain energy is only around 40 kcal/mol. In contrast, a fully broken pi bond has an energetic cost of around 65 kcal/mol. Some pyramidal alkenes are stable. For example, trans-cyclooctene is a stable strained alkene and the orbital misalignment is only 19°, despite having a significant dihedral angle of 137° (a planar system has a dihedral angle of 180°) and a degree of pyramidalization of 18°. Even trans-cycloheptene is stable at low temperatures. As predicted by the VSEPR model of electron pair repulsion, the molecular geometry of alkenes includes bond angles about each carbon in a double bond of about 120°. The angle may vary because of steric strain introduced by nonbonded interactions between functional groups attached to the carbons of the double bond. For example, the C–C–C bond angle in propylene is 123.9°. For bridged alkenes, Bredt's rule states that a double bond cannot occur at the bridgehead of a bridged ring system unless the rings are large enough. Following Fawcett and defining S as the total number of non-bridgehead atoms in the rings, bicyclic systems require S ≥ 7 for stability and tricyclic systems require S ≥ 11.