Heptadecane
Encyclopedia
Heptadecane is an organic compound
Organic compound
An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...

, an alkane
Alkane
Alkanes are chemical compounds that consist only of hydrogen and carbon atoms and are bonded exclusively by single bonds without any cycles...

 hydrocarbon
Hydrocarbon
In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....

 with the chemical formula
Chemical formula
A chemical formula or molecular formula is a way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound....

 C17H36. The name may refer to any of 24894 theoretically possible constitutional isomers, or to a mixture thereof.

The unbranched isomer is normal or n-heptadecane, CH3(CH2)15CH3. In the IUPAC nomenclature, the name of this compound is simply heptadecane, since the other isomers are viewed and named as alkyl-substituted versions of smaller alkanes.

The most compact and branched isomer would be 3,3-di-tert-butyl-2,2,4,4-tetramethylpentane, but its existence is believed to be impossible due to steric hindrance. Indeed, it is believed to be the smallest "impossible" alkane.

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