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Chemistry vocabulary · Organic Chemistry

Aromatic compound

Meaning in chemistry, with examples

nounAdvanced term

In chemistry, aromatic compound means: An organic compound that contains a flat ring of delocalized electrons, such as a benzene ring. These rings are unusually stable.

In Turkish: aromatik bileşik

How it is used

Used in organic, pharmaceutical and petrochemical chemistry. Benzene, toluene, phenol and many drugs and dyes are aromatic compounds. They usually undergo substitution rather than addition reactions.

Example sentences

  1. Aspirin is an aromatic compound with a benzene ring in its structure.

  2. Most aromatic compounds absorb UV light, so they appear as dark spots on a fluorescent TLC plate.

Common collocations

  • aromatic ring
  • aromatic hydrocarbon
  • aromatic substitution
  • polycyclic aromatic compound
  • hydrocarbonA compound made of only carbon and hydrogen. Methane, propane, ethylene and benzene are examples, and crude oil is mostly a mixture of them.
  • organic compoundA compound built mainly from carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen, often with oxygen, nitrogen or other elements. Fuels, plastics, drugs and most molecules of living things belong here.
  • functional groupA specific group of atoms within a molecule, such as –OH or –COOH, that gives the molecule its typical reactions. Compounds with the same group react in similar ways.
  • alkeneA hydrocarbon with at least one carbon–carbon double bond. Simple ones have the general formula CₙH₂ₙ, and ethene (ethylene) is the smallest.

More terms: Organic Chemistry

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