What is ring strain?

1 Answer
anor277
Jan 17, 2018

As you know, the ideal bond angle in an organic molecule is #109.5^@#....

Explanation:

And of course, this is the ideal tetrahedral bond angle...aliphatic molecules have #/_H-C-H#, #/_H-C-C#, and #/_C-C-C#, etc. #-=# #109.5^@#. When there is #C-C# ring junction, these geometries may become distorted....for cyclohexane, there is little strain, as the ring geometry supports the ideal bond angle.

For #C_3H_6#, #/_C-C-C=60^@# necessarily, and for #C_4H_8#, #/_C-C-C~=90^@#. When these rings are combusted, the enthalpy is elevated with respect to the acyclic olefins, and this is a manifestation of the strain of the ring.

See this site for further details.

Related questions
Impact of this question
1269 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License