NAMING ALKANE SUBSTITUTIONS
When an alkane hydrocarbon has an end hydrogen removed, it is referred to as an
alkyl substituent or group. The respective name of each is the alkane name with -
ane replaced by -yl. These are called alkyl groups.
TIP
Replace -ane with -yl to form alkyl groups.One method of naming a substitution product is to use the alkyl name for the
respective chain and the halide as shown above. The halogen takes the form of
fluoro-, bromo-, iodo-, and so on, depending on the halogen, and is attached to an
alkane name. It precedes the alkane name, as shown above in bromomethane and
1-chlorobutane.
The IUPAC system uses the name of the longest carbon chain as the parent
chain. The carbon atoms are numbered in the parent chain to indicate where
branching or substitution takes place. The direction of numbering is chosen so that
the lowest numbers possible are given to the side chains. The complete name of
the compound is arrived at by first naming the attached group, each of these being
prefixed by the number of the carbon to which it is attached, and then the parent
alkane. If a particular group appears more than once, the appropriate prefix (di,
tri, and so on) is used to indicate how many times the group appears. A carbon