Bromine water is an orange solution of bromine. It becomes colourless when it is shaken with an alkene. Alkenes can decolourise bromine water, but alkanes cannot. The slideshow shows this process.

Hydrocarbons – because they contain hydrogen and carbon only. Unsaturated – because they contain at least one C=C. Each alkene containing one C=C has two fewer hydrogen atoms than the corresponding ...

Chemists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a straightforward method to convert common chemicals like carboxylic acids, alcohols, and alkanes directly into valuable alkenes ...

A new cobalt catalyst designed by Paul Chirik and coworkers at Princeton University gives chemists two mechanisms for the price of one. The team’s alkene hydrogenation reaction runs differently ...