Chlorinated hydrocarbon
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
Chlorinated hydrocarbons are a class of chemicals used mainly as solvents but also with many other uses. A chlorinated hydrocarbon is derived, obviously, from a hydrocarbon molecule where one or more of the hydrogen atoms has been replaced by a chlorine atom.
To start with the most basic hydrocarbon methane or CH4, one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms; replacement of one of the hydrogen atoms by a chlorine atom produces CH3Cl, known as methyl chloride. Replace another hydrogen atom and you get CH2Cl2 or methylene chloride. Putting in yet another chlorine form CHCl3, chloroform. Replacing the final hydrogen atom form CCl4, carbon tetrachloride.
When the original molecule consists of two or more carbon atoms the results become a lot more complicated particularly when there are also more than one chlorine atoms involved as there are a many more possibilities as to which hydrogena tom is replaced. This is calledisomerization, the formation of more than one chemical having the same basic molecular formula.
