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Why are olefins preferred to alkanes in synthetic organic chemistry?

Answer 1

Because alkanes, even alicyclic alkanes are reasonably unreactive.

Alkanes are in general non-reactive species. You can burn them, and we do burn them to power our industry and motors, but hydrocarbyl chain activation is a challenging process that typically requires specific conditions like UV light.

On the other hand, olefins, #C=C# groups (which may be introduced by radical bromination of an alkane, and then dehydrobromination) are reactive species; and these are reactive towards halogens, hydrogen halides, and sulfuric acid, and permanganates.

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Answer 2

Brooklyn Barber

Olefins are preferred over alkanes in synthetic organic chemistry due to their higher reactivity. The presence of a double bond in olefins allows for easy chemical manipulation and the introduction of functional groups. This reactivity enhances the synthetic versatility of olefins compared to the relatively inert alkanes. Additionally, olefins serve as valuable intermediates in the synthesis of a wide range of organic compounds.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.