What is the structure of a saturated fatty acid?
What is the structure of a saturated fatty acid?
Saturated fatty acids are compounds that consist of a hydrocarbon chain and a carboxylic acid group (-COOH) at the end of the chain. These fatty acids are referred to as saturated because the hydrocarbon chain is saturated with hydrogen atoms due to the absence of double bonds.
What is the molecular structure of a fatty acid?
Generally, a fatty acid consists of a straight chain of an even number of carbon atoms, with hydrogen atoms along the length of the chain and at one end of the chain and a carboxyl group (―COOH) at the other end. It is that carboxyl group that makes it an acid (carboxylic acid).
What makes a molecule a saturated fatty acid?
saturated fat, a fatty acid in which the hydrocarbon molecules have a hydrogen atom on every carbon and thus are fully hydrogenated. (By way of comparison, the hydrocarbon molecules of unsaturated fats have two carbons that share double or triple bonds and are therefore not completely saturated with hydrogen atoms.)
What molecules are in a saturated fat?
A saturated fat is a type of fatty acid. The core of a fatty acid is a long chain of carbon atoms linked together. In a saturated fat, each carbon is linked to two other carbons and has two hydrogens bound as well, with three hydrogens on the last carbon at the end of the chain.
Why do saturated fatty acids have straight structures while unsaturated fatty acids have bent structures?
These molecules differ in structure and food sources. Saturated fatty acids exhibit a linear structure while unsaturated fatty acids bend, or kink, due to double bonds within the chemical foundation.
How does saturation affect fatty acid structure function?
A fatty acid is saturated when it contains no double bonds between carbon atoms, and thereby has the maximum amount of hydrogen atoms attached to the hydrocarbon chain. Double bonds create bends in the structure of a fatty acid, causing the molecules to be farther apart.
Why do saturated fatty acids have straight structures while unsaturated acids have bent structures?
How saturated fatty acids are obtained from unsaturated fatty acid?
Unsaturated fatty acids may be converted to saturated fatty acids by the relatively simple hydrogenation reaction. Recall that the addition of hydrogen to an alkene (unsaturated) results in an alkane (saturated).
What type of molecular structure is found within molecules of unsaturated fats?
unsaturated fat, a fatty acid in which the hydrocarbon molecules have two carbons that share double or triple bond(s) and are therefore not completely saturated with hydrogen atoms.
Why molecules of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids have different shapes?
In the unsaturated fatty acid, there are one or multiple double bonds in the string on the right side of the HO-C=0 . These carbon atoms that are connected by this double bond do not have the 4 different atoms bond to it. This change causes the fatty acids to have a different shape.
Which explains the twisting or bending of fatty acid molecule?
A cis configuration means that the two hydrogen atoms adjacent to the double bond stick out on the same side of the chain. The rigidity of the double bond freezes its conformation and, in the case of the cis isomer, causes the chain to bend and restricts the conformational freedom of the fatty acid.
