What are Hydrocarbons?
Hydrocarbons are chemical compounds consisting entirely of carbon and hydrogen. They are a subset of organic compounds. Hydrocarbons range from methane, which is just one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms, to polymers such as polystyrene, which consists of thousands of carbon and hydrogen atoms. As carbon-carbon bonds are the strongest in all of chemistry, long chains with carbon backbones are extremely durable, and seem to have a practically unlimited extent.
Hydrocarbons come in a variety of forms. They may be gases (methane and propane), liquids (hexane and benzene), waxes (paraffin wax), or polymers (polyethylene and polystyrene). Hydrocarbons can be processed to create plastics.
There are four main types of hydrocarbons: saturated hydrocarbons, consisting of only single bonds between carbon atoms; unsaturated hydrocarbons, with double or triple bonds; cycloalkanes, with consist of hydrogen bonded to carbon rings; and aromatic hydrocarbons, which contain a chemical structure known as an aromatic ring, of which benzene is the simplest example.
The primary source of hydrocarbons here on Earth is through fossil fuels – coal, oil, and natural gas. These are extracted from the ground in quantities of millions of tons per day, and are the primary energy source for today’s civilization. 85% of all electricity worldwide is generated by the burning of hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbon fuel is used to propel practically every mobile machine: cars, trucks, trains, planes, and ships.
Hydrocarbons have been a very successful fuel source over the last two hundred or so years, but there are increasingly calls to scale back its use. The combustion of hydrocarbons produces smoke and soot, generating pollution which is responsible for smog and acid rain. Even worse, the burning of hydrocarbons releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing global warming. Hydrocarbons will not last forever. Burning fuel at the current rate, oil could run out in less than a century and coal in several centuries. All of this has led to calls to develop renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, and the construction of more nuclear power plants, which produce zero emissions.
In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work in confirming and spreading the message that the combustion of hydrocarbons is largely responsible for global warming.
Written by Michael Anissimov
