Why is formaldehyde an aldehyde?
1 Answer
May 3, 2018
Carbonyl is on the terminal carbon of the chain.
Explanation:
All aldehydes are characterized by possessing a carbonyl group.
Formaldehyde is considered an aldehyde because its carbonyl reside on a carbon at the end of chain where a hydrogen is present, rather than in the middle of a chain (that would be a ketone). Since formaldehyde has only 1 carbon TOTAL, the carbonyl group is on the "final carbon in the chain", technically it's on both the first and the last carbon
:-)
Formaldehyde structure.
