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A primary carbon is a
carbon atom Carbon () is a chemical element with the chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent bond, covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to gro ...
which is bound to only one other carbon atom. It is thus at the end of a carbon chain. In case of an
alkane In organic chemistry, an alkane, or paraffin (a historical trivial name that also has other meanings), is an acyclic saturated hydrocarbon. In other words, an alkane consists of hydrogen and carbon atoms arranged in a tree structure in which ...
, three hydrogen atoms are bound to a primary carbon (see propane in the figure on the right). A hydrogen atom could also be replaced by a hydroxy group, which would make the molecule a primary alcohol. {, class="wikitable centered" style="text-align: center; font-size: 90%; margin-bottom: 10px;" , - , , style="background-color:#AAC1FF" , ''primary'' carbon , style="background-color:#7A91FF" , ''secondary'' carbon , style="background-color:#7A91FF" , ''tertiary'' carbon , style="background-color:#7A91FF" , ''quaternary'' carbon , - , align="center" style="background-color:#CAE1FF; height:80px; width:20%" , General structure
(R = Organyl group) , style="background-color:#FFFFFF" , , style="background-color:#BFBFBF" , , style="background-color:#BFBFBF" , , style="background-color:#BFBFBF" , , - , align="center" style="background-color:#CAE1FF; height:80px; width:20%" , Partial
Structural formula The structural formula of a chemical compound is a graphic representation of the molecular structure (determined by structural chemistry methods), showing how the atoms are possibly arranged in the real three-dimensional space. The chemical bondi ...
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References

Chemical nomenclature Organic chemistry