What are skeletal formulas or skeletal structures (of organic compounds) ?

1 Answer
anor277
May 9, 2018

These are formulaic representations that DO NOT illustrate hydrogen....

Explanation:

We know say that #"n-butane"# is #C_4H_12#..we could write it long hand...#H_3C-CH_2CH_2CH_3#...alternatively, we could write it as...

...alternatively, we could write it as...

http://jsmbchemistry.blogspot.co.uk/

The second representation is the skeletal formula....the zig-zag represents a methylene unit, i.e. #CH_2CH_2#...and of course with more complicated structures we could insert heteroatoms, and carbocycles, and heterocycles appropriately.

Related questions
See all questions in Skeletal Structure
Impact of this question
9014 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License