Ethylene

Ethylene, also called ethene, is the two-carbon alkene C₂H₄. Its carbon–carbon double bond makes it a reactive starting material for polymers and other chemicals.

Alkene: An unsaturated hydrocarbon containing at least one carbon–carbon double bond. Ethylene is the simplest member of this family of compounds.
Steam cracking: A high-temperature process that breaks hydrocarbons into smaller molecules, including ethylene. It is the principal industrial route for producing ethylene from hydrocarbons.
Johann Joachim Becher: A seventeenth-century German physician and chemist who described an oil-producing gas later associated with ethylene. His observations of the gas from heating ethanol are among the earliest reports linked to ethylene.
Ethane: A saturated two-carbon hydrocarbon, C₂H₆, with a carbon–carbon single bond. Adding hydrogen across ethylene’s double bond produces ethane.
Ethylene pi bond: The side-on overlap of carbon p orbitals that forms one component of ethylene’s double bond. This weaker, exposed part of the double bond drives many addition reactions.
Polyvinyl chloride: A plastic made by polymerizing vinyl chloride monomers. Ethylene is converted into ethylene dichloride and then vinyl chloride for PVC production.
Joseph Priestley: An English chemist and natural philosopher known for experiments on gases in the eighteenth century. He prepared and studied the gas later called olefiant gas.
Acetylene: A two-carbon hydrocarbon, C₂H₂, containing a carbon–carbon triple bond. It is the more unsaturated two-carbon counterpart to ethylene.
Electrophilic addition: A reaction in which an electrophile and a nucleophile add across a carbon–carbon multiple bond. Ethylene’s electron-rich double bond readily undergoes this reaction pattern.
Ethylene glycol: A two-carbon diol used chiefly in polyester manufacture and antifreeze formulations. Industrial production commonly makes it by hydrating ethylene oxide.

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