REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

General Properties of Hydrocarbons

Solubility

Hydrocarbons are not expected to be soluble in water because of its polarity. Hydrocarbons are
non-polar in nature and on the other side water is polar. As the general principle of “like
dissolved like” its clearly state that non-polar molecules are not tend to be soluble in polar
molecules. So expect that Alkane, alkene and alkynes are in soluble in water except for some
reasons like unsaturated hydrocarbons are slightly soluble in water. For example, around 500
mg/L is the solubility of toluene but not very much soluble. Hydrocarbons are less dense than
water and most of the organic compounds. When hydrocarbons comes in contact with flame it
burns easily than other compounds forming carbon dioxide and water (Matt, 2011). It tends to
be slightly soluble in water and very soluble in acetone at 15°C, 25 parts of acetylene to 1 part
of acetone (Farlex, 2018).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

General Properties

n-hexane hexene acetylene

SOLUBILITY IN WATER Insoluble Insoluble Soluble

SOLUBILITY IN
Insoluble Soluble Soluble
CHLOROFORM

Hydrocarbons are mainly composed of hydrogen bonded to carbon in many different

configurations to form a compound. There are two main groups of hydrocarbons. First is the
aliphatic group which is further divided into three classes; alkenes, alkanes, and alkynes (Carey,
2018). Alkanes in known as saturated hydrocarbons due to the single bond between atoms
which makes the compound not reactive because of its stability. Alkenes, are also called olefin
with at least one double bond but may contain one or more double bonds or one or more triple
bonds between atoms. Thus, making the compound reactive than alkanes but relatively stable
than alkynes. Acetylenes or alkynes have one or more triple bond between carbon atoms and
also unsaturated hydrocarbons just like alkenes but it is more reactive because of
polymerization and oligomerization and the presence of triple bonds (Kaushik, 2011). The last
main group is the aromatic hydrocarbons with low carbon-to-hydrogen ratio, atoms arrange in
the ring structure and the presence of delocalized pi electrons (Madhusha, 2017). In the
experiment utilization of aliphatic hydrocarbons in the presence of hexane, hexane, and
acetylene are used to identify the physical properties of hydrocarbons by solubility and
combustibility. Alkanes, alkenes, and alkynes have different structures thus give different
physical and chemical properties (Kaushik, 2011).

Polarity is used to determine the force of attraction between the molecules in the liquid
state. The attraction of the polar molecules starts with the partially positive end of a molecule
attracted to the negative end of another molecule (Ophardt, 2003). One of good examples of a
polar molecule is H2O. Water molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen
atom. The bond between those atoms is called covalent bonds. When two water molecule binds
together hydrogen bonding occurs (University of Arizona, 2003). On the other side,
Hydrocarbons are the examples of nonpolar molecules this is because of the electronegativity of
its atoms. From left to right across the periodic table the electronegativity increases.
Hydrocarbons as stated earlier it is composed of hydrogen with 2.2 electronegativities and
carbon with 2.55 electronegativity. Even though there is a little difference between the values it
is still considered as nonpolar molecule because it has <0.5 values difference (Study, 2013)

In the experiment 3ml of water is mixed with 1ml of hexane and hexane in two separate
test tube. It was observed that both of the solutions shows two distinct layers. Hexene and
hexane float on top of the water due to its density. Any substance that has lesser density than
its solvent tends to float (ACS Chemistry for Life, 2019). Hydrocarbons are less dense than
water, in result, it is insoluble in water, they only float on it. In addition, when looking to the
molecular level of the solution the general principle of “Like dissolves like” can be used to
determine if a substance is insoluble or not. Polar substances tend to dissolve with polar solvent
and nonpolar solute dissolved in a nonpolar solvent (Bristish Columbia Institute of Technology,
2006)hence, Hexane and hexene being non-polar, will not dissolve in water because it is a polar
substance. Acetylene is known as the only common dissolved gas that is soluble in water and
many organic materials (National Center for Biotechnology Information, 2019).

Chloroform (CHCl3) or trichloromethane, is a colorless liquid, nonflammable, clear, has

pleasant ether like odour, and highly soluble and denser than water (National Center for
Biotechnology Information, 2019). It is considered as slightly polar substance because of Cl is
more negatively charge than C and H and has an even distribution of molecules (Hamilton,
2011). Therefore, hexane is insoluble in chloroform in the experiment as stated in the table
because of its non-polar molecules and it only contains single bond. Base on the observation,
upon agitating the solution with hexene, changing the color of the solution occurs from clear
white to light brown this is due to the fact that hexene is more prone to reaction because of the
presence of double band and chloroform is still consider as organic solvent because of its non-
polar nature (Belding, 2017) and at the same time can be slightly polar. Acetylene, just like in
water it is also soluble in chloroform and other solvent such as acetone, benzene and slight
soluble in ethanol (Soft School, 2019)

CONCLUSION

Using the different tests for physical and chemical properties we have a tendency to be
able to differentiate every sort of hydrocarbon. Primarily based from the results of the
experiment, the scholars conclude that the kind of bonding, single covalent, double covalent,
and triple covalent, affects the physical and chemical properties of the hydrocarbons. Alkanes
are less reactive compared to alkenes and alkynes since the only sort of bond present in
alkanes are sigma bonds that are a lot of stable than the pi bonds which may be found on each
alkenes and alkynes. For solubility, generally, most organic compounds like alkanes, alkenes
and alkynes are insoluble in water due to the nonionic nature of compounds. However, some
ethyne could be slightly soluble in water, an example of that is aliphatic compound. For
combustion, most organic compounds are flammable. The distinction on the properties of the
flame depends on the kind of organic compound undergoing combustion. In general, as
unsaturation will increase, the molecules don't seem to possess enough time to interrupt all the
required bonds within the flame region, to allow the colorless, combustion products expected.
However, the reverse was discovered in our data. This may well be caused by the errors on
observation of the students since the flame solely appeared for many seconds. For bromination,
happens quicker within the presence of sunshine. For alkanes reaction happens via substitution
whereas for alkenes and alkynes it occurs via addition. Lastly, for Baeyer’s test for Unsaturation,
hexane and aliphatic compound gave a positive result that corresponds to literature results
since each hydrocarbon are unsaturated in nature. The physical and chemical properties of
hydrocarbons permit us to work out the foremost applicable place to use them. Alkanes are
typically used as heating oils and fuels. Fuel and alkane are typically used as liquefied
petroleum gas. Alkenes are vital in producing polymers like polyethene. Lastly, alkynes are
necessary in preparing polymers and additionally as a basic material for several alternative
organic compounds. For the determination of iodine number, hexane and vegetable oil were
found to be a lot of unsaturated compared to the opposite oils. This makes vegetable oil a lot of
appropriate for consumption. Since unsaturated oil are better for peoples’ health
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