Tertiary carbon atom

Tertiary carbon atom

Structural formula of isobutane (the tertiary carbon atom is marked in red )

A tertiary carbon atom is a carbon atom that is bonded to three other carbon atoms. For this reason, tertiary carbon atoms are only found in hydrocarbons with at least four carbon atoms. Tertiary carbon atoms can occur, for example, in branched alkanes , but not in linear alkanes.

	Comparison of tertiary with primary , secondary and quaternary carbon atoms ( red )
	Primary carbon atom	Secondary carbon atom	Tertiary carbon atom	Quaternary carbon atom
General structure (R = organyl residue )
Extract from structural formula

Individual evidence

↑ Hans Peter Latscha, Uli Kazmaier, Helmut Alfons Klein: Organic Chemistry: Chemistry Basics II . 7th edition. Springer Spectrum, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-46180-8 , p. 40 .

[1] Hans Peter Latscha, Uli Kazmaier, Helmut Alfons Klein: Organic Chemistry: Chemistry Basics II . 7th edition. Springer Spectrum, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-662-46180-8 , p. 40 .