What is ethane?

Ethane is an organic compound with molecular formula C2H6. It is a saturated aliphatic hydrocarbon. Ethane is colorless, odorless gas at standard pressure and temperature.

Ethane is mixed with methane in natural gas. Again, a little ethane is also available from coal gas. The melting point of ethane is 101K and the boiling point is 184K.

Ethane is non polar saturated hydrocarbon. Consequently, it is insoluble or sparingly soluble in water but readily soluble in organic solvents like benzene, ethanol etc.

It burns in air oxygen to form carbon dioxide and water. Ethane is a saturated hydrocarbon and hence it is inert in nature. That is, it does not take part in a chemical reaction normally.

But under certain condition it under goes chemical reactions, basically substitution and oxidation reactions. However, ethane is an important gaseous fuel.

When cooled to normal pressure, ethane gas becomes like a plastic crystal.Under this condition, the positions of hydrogenatoms are not fixed and the molecules rotate freely around the long axis.

Read more: Is methane a greenhouse gas?

What Is The Structure And Formula Of Ethane?

The chemical formula of ethane is C2H6. The exact molar mass of ethane is 30.07 g / mol. In ethane molecule, two carbon atoms are attached to each other.

Each carbon atoms of ethane contain three hydrogen atoms. Each carbon atoms are sp3 hybridized.

The H — C — C bond angle of ethane is 112ᵒ. The C — C and C –H bond angle in ethane are 1.54Å, 1.09Å respectively.

Synthesis of ethane

There are different methods for synthesis of ethane. Out of these, some important methods are discussed below.

(I)Ethane is synthesized by reduction of ethyl iodide or ethyl bromide using Zinc-Copper couple in the presence of ethanol solvent.

(I)Decarboxylation method: Ethane is also prepared by heating a mixture of anhydrous sodium propionate and sodalime. This method is known as Decarboxylation method.

(III)Wurtz reaction: It is an important reaction for the preparation of ethane. In this case, methyl iodide and metallic sodium is heated in presence of dry ether solvent.

(IV)Another method for preparation of ethane is the reduction of alkene or alkyne in presence of metal catalyst. It is industrial method for ethane gas preparation.

In this case, ethylene or acetylene and hydrogen mixture is passed over a Ni catalyst at 250ᵒC — 300ᵒC temperature.

Why is ethane used for?

Uses of ethane

There are different uses of ethane gas. Ethane is mainly used as a fuel. It is also used in the photochemical industry as a fraction of that produced in the natural gas liquids plants alone.

Again, ethylene gas that produced from ethane is used to ripening fruit. It is used as the most specific volatile marker for the investigation of lipid per-oxidation.

Ethane can be used as a refrigerant in cryogenic refrigeration systems. On a much smaller scale, in scientific research, liquid ethane is used to vitrify water-rich samples for electron microscopy.

A thin film of water quickly immersed in liquid ethane at 123K or colder, freezes too quickly for water to crystallize.

Slower freezing methods can generate cubic ice crystals that can disrupt soft structures by damaging the samples and reduced image quality by scattering the electron beam before it can reach the detector.

Besides these, ethane is used to prepare ethanol, ethyl halide, acetaldehyde, acetic acid etc.

Why is ethane inert in nature?

Generally ethane is an inert compound. It does not react easily with acids, alkalis, oxidants or reductant. However, under suitable conditions, ethane forms compounds by substitution reaction.

The cause of ethane inactivity:

The activity of any compound depends on four basic characteristics or conditions of that substance.

These characteristics or conditions are the presence of polar pi bonds in the compound, the presence of one or more lone pair of electron, the presence of an atom that can cause the expansion of the octet and the presence of an atom with an incomplete octet.

Ethane does not have any of the above characteristics. Consequently, ethane is inert substance.