Skeletal Structural Formulas
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Skeletal Structural Formulas

Another way of simplifying structural formulas is by using skeletal structural formulas. For these, you simply eliminate all of the hydrogen atoms. When you interpret these or change them into complete structural formulas, you have to remember to add enough hydrogen atoms to bring the total number of bonds for each carbon atom up to four.

Practice

Just to see if you understand what that involves, take the skeletal structural formulas shown below (and in exercise 7 in your workbook) and convert them to complete structural formulas by adding the appropriate hydrogens.

C-C-C-C C-C-C
|
C
C-C=C-C
|  
C  		C-C-C-C
| |
C C

Check your answers below.

Answers

H H H H
| | | |
H-C-C-C-C-H
| | | |
H H H H		 H   H   H
|   |   |
H - C - C - C - H
|   |   |
H H-C-H H
|
H
H           H
|           |
H - C - C = C - C - H
|   |   |   |
H H-C-H H   H
|    
H    		H   H     H   H
|   |     |   |
H - C - C ¾¾ C - C - H
|   |     |   |
H H-C-H H-C-H H
|     |
H     H

Note that the carbon atoms with double bonds don't get as many hydrogen atoms as the carbon atoms with only single bonds.

 

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