Did you know?

Vaseline and petrol both contain alkanes

You have seen people using petrol in cars and you must have used Vaseline¹ or some other petroleum jelly. Both of these are derived from crude oil or petroleum and they both contain different forms of alkanes.

Figure 1. Uranus and Neptune.

Uranus and Neptune have methane

Methane is the simplest form of alkane. It is present in the atmospheres of Uranus² and Neptune³. Methane absorbs at near infrared or visible range of electromagnetic spectrum and emits the complimentary blue color.

Marsh Gas and cooking gas are alkanes

The cooking gas that we use in the kitchen contains alkanes more specifically, propane and butane⁴ and marsh gas, which burns with a blue flame, is also an alkane (more specifically, methane). Watch this video to see how marsh gas looks like while burning.

Shark liver oil and cockroach pheromone have alkanes

A branched alkane called pristane is found in shark liver oil⁵ and cockroach pheromone have undecane⁶, a linear alkane.

Figure 2. Pristane (left) and undecane (right).

References

References for this article