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In organic chemistry, an alkene, olefin, or olefine is an unsaturated chemical compound containing at least one carbon-to-carbon double bond. [1] The simplest acyclic alkenes, with only one double bond and no other functional groups, form a homologous series of hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n. [2] The simplest alkene is ethylene (C2H4), which has the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) name ethene. Alkenes are also called olefins (an archaic synonym, widely used in the petrochemical industry). Aromatic compounds are often drawn as cyclic alkenes, but their structure and properties are different and they are not considered to be alkenes.[2] Like single covalent bonds, double bonds can be described in terms of overlapping atomic orbitals, except that unlike a single bond (which consists of a single sigma bond), a carbon-carbon double bond consists of one sigma bond and one pi bond. This double bond is stronger than a single covalent bond (611&_160;kJ/mol for C=C vs. 347&_160;kJ/mol for C—C) [1] and also shorter with an average bond length of 1.33 Angstroms (133 pm). Each carbon of the double bond uses its three sp² hybrid orbitals to form sigma bonds to three atoms. The unhybridized 2p atomic orbitals, which lie perpendicular to the plane created by the axes of the three sp² hybrid orbitals, combine to form the pi bond. This bond lies outside the main C—C axis, with half of the bond on one side and half on the other.
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