Stannylene or metallastanna(IV)ocane: a matter of formalism

In an organic molecule, free rotation about the carbon-carbon single bond results in energetically different conformers of the molecule. Due to this rotation, called the internal rotation, ethane has two major conformations — staggered and eclipsed.
Staggered conformation is a low energy and more stable conformation with the C-H bonds on the front carbon placed at 60°dihedral angles relative to the C-H bonds on the back carbon, leading to a reduced torsional strain. In staggered ethane, the...

In the late 19th-century, the number of new chemical compounds discovered increased tremendously. Hence, the necessity arose to develop a naming system for the systematic nomenclature of these newly discovered compounds. IUPAC (International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry), established in 1919, sets rules for the nomenclature.
The alkane nomenclature considers the length of the carbon chain, the number, and the location of the substituent to arrive at its systematic name. The IUPAC...

Organic compounds of the same molecular formula can have different structural formulas called constitutional isomers, and the phenomenon is known as constitutional isomerism. Alkanes with four or more carbons showing multiple structures with the same molecular formula thereby exhibit constitutional isomerism.
The linear isomer of an alkane is prefixed by the term “n”; hence a linear isomer of pentane is known as n-pentane. Based on the type of branching, some of the branched isomers are given...

Unlike ethane and propane that have only two major conformations, butane has more than two conformers. The staggered form of butane in which the bulky methyl groups on the two carbons are placed on opposite sides, that is, at a dihedral angle of 180°, is the lowest energy, most stable form — called the anti conformer. This conformation is stabilized due to the absence of steric repulsion between the largely spaced out methyl groups. The other two staggered conformations are degenerate and have...

Molecular Orbital Energy Diagrams

The IUPAC naming system for alkenes replaces -an- with -en- in the corresponding parent alkanes. Accordingly, a simple alkene replaces the -ane suffix of the alkane with -ene.
As per the IUPAC rules, the longest carbon chain containing the maximum number of double bonds is identified as the parent chain and is numbered such that the doubly bonded carbon atoms receive the lowest possible numbers. The location of the double bond is indicated by the number of its first carbon atom. In branched...