Review of General Chemistry
Structure and Properties of Alkanes
The alkanes are isolated from natural gas and petroleum. Natural gas contains mainly methane, with smaller amounts of other low-molecular-weight alkanes. Petroleum, which is a complex mixture of many compounds, is the main source of all other alkanes. The lighter fractions are distilled from the mixture to produce the liquid alkanes, while the residue from the distillation produces the solid alkanes.
