Question

Your lab partner named this compound 3-methyl-4-n-propylhexane, but that is not correct.

Answer 1

Answer: The correct IUPAC name of the alkane is 4-ethyl-3-methylheptane

Explanation:

The IUPAC nomenclature of alkanes are given as follows:

• Select the longest possible carbon chain.
• For the number of carbon atom, we add prefix as 'meth' for 1, 'eth' for 2, 'prop' for 3, 'but' for 4, 'pent' for 5, 'hex' for 6, 'sept' for 7, 'oct' for 8, 'nona' for 9 and 'deca' for 10.
• A suffix '-ane' is added at the end of the name.
• If two of more similar alkyl groups are present, then the words 'di', 'tri' 'tetra' and so on are used to specify the number of times these alkyl groups appear in the chain.

We are given:

An alkane having chemical name as 3-methyl-4-n-propylhexane. This will not be the correct name of the alkane because the longest possible carbon chain has 7 Carbon atoms, not 6 carbon atoms

The image of the given alkane is shown in the image below.

Hence, the correct IUPAC name of the alkane is 4-ethyl-3-methylheptane