Question

What is the difference between branched and unbranched alkanes?

Answer 1

Any alkane that has a carbon atom adjacent to 3 or 4 other carbon atoms, is considered a branched alkane.

Any alkane that has all the carbon atoms adjacent only to 1 or 2 carbon atoms is an unbranched alkane.

Explanation:

Example of

branched butane: `"HC"("CH"_3)_3`

unbranched butane: `"H"_3"C"("CH"_2)_2"CH"_3`

Due to the difference in chemical structure, you would expect some chemical properties, such as boiling point, of branched and unbranched alkanes to differ.