Introduction to Chemistry of Lipids
2. Classification base on composition
2.3. Nomenclature of fatty acid
Systemic or IUPAC name of a fatty acid is formed by replacing the ending –e of alkane with suffix – oic acid to form a carboxylic acid
• Examples: 16C fatty acid: hexadecanoic acid (hexadecane), and 18C fatty acid: octadecanoic acid (octadecane)
• Fatty acid can also be named using α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ,
η, θ to describe the carbon positions
The carboxyl carbon is only assigned C-1 while
from C-2 can now take α and C-3, β and so on. The terminal carbon atom in a fatty acid molecule
is considered as ω-carbon or the n-carbon atom.
