Question

Differentiate between saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons.

Answer 1

Saturated hydrocarbons are “Saturated” with hydrogen atoms.

containing only sigma bonds between atoms as to ensure that each Carbon atoms in that molecules has its full octet of hydrogen atoms.

As a result of this, they tend to be very inert (non-reactive), even with ions.

Unsaturated hydrocarbons are hydrocarbons that simply contain double or triple bonds. That is to say that some Carbon atoms within the chain would rather bond “twice” so to speak and not a hydrogen atom.

Unlike Saturated hydrocarbons, Unsaturated hydrocarbons are much more reactive