Aliphatic compound

Aliphatic compounds are "saturated" carbon molecules. Aliphatic molecules consist, generally, of a backbone of carbon atoms and other atoms bound to this carbon chain - most frequently hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and various halides. They are often studied as a branch of organic chemistry.

The term "aliphatic" is used to distinguish such molecules from those deemed "aromatic" because of an aromatic ring structure (e.g., the benzene ring), in accordance with Hueckel's "2n+4" rule for ring valence electrons, and to distinguish them from other "unsaturated" compounds which contain carbon-carbon bond?s of an order higher than 1 (ie, those compounds containing alkene or alkyne functional groups. The alkane series of hydrocarbons are aliphatic compounds.

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