Heptadecane is an organic compound

Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...

, an alkane

Alkane

Alkanes are chemical compounds that consist only of hydrogen and carbon atoms and are bonded exclusively by single bonds without any cycles...

 hydrocarbon

Hydrocarbon

In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....

 with the chemical formula

Chemical formula

A chemical formula or molecular formula is a way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound....

 C₁₇H₃₆. The name may refer to any of 24894 theoretically possible constitutional isomers, or to a mixture thereof.

The unbranched isomer is normal or n-heptadecane, CH₃(CH₂)₁₅CH₃. In the IUPAC nomenclature, the name of this compound is simply heptadecane, since the other isomers are viewed and named as alkyl-substituted versions of smaller alkanes.

The most compact and branched isomer would be 3,3-di-tert-butyl-2,2,4,4-tetramethylpentane, but its existence is believed to be impossible due to steric hindrance. Indeed, it is believed to be the smallest "impossible" alkane.

External links

• List of plant species containing heptadecane, Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases