Tertiary carbon

tertiary Carbon
Structural formula of isobutane (tertiary carbon is highlighted red)

A tertiary carbon atom is a carbon atom bound to three other carbon atoms.[1] For this reason, tertiary carbon atoms are found only in hydrocarbons containing at least four carbon atoms. They are called saturated hydrocarbons because they only contain carbon-carbon single bonds.[2] Tertiary carbons have a hybridization of sp3. Tertiary carbon atoms can occur, for example, in branched alkanes, but not in linear alkanes.[3]

primary carbon secondary carbon tertiary carbon quaternary carbon
General structure
(R = Organyl group) 		frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0
Partial
Structural formula 		frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0 frameless=1.0
A tertiary carbon attached to a functional group.
  1. ^ Smith, Janice Gorzynski (2011). "Chapter 4 Alkanes". Organic chemistry (Book) (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-07-337562-5.
  2. ^ Ouellette, Robert J.; Rawn, J. David (2018), "Alkanes and Cycloalkanes: Structures and Reactions", Organic Chemistry, Elsevier, pp. 87–133, retrieved 2022-11-17
  3. ^ Hans Peter Latscha, Uli Kazmaier, Helmut Alfons Klein (2016), Organische Chemie: Chemie-Basiswissen II (in German) (7. Auflage ed.), Berlin: Springer Spektrum, p. 40, ISBN 978-3-662-46180-8{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)