Aliphatic

From Wikinfo

In chemistry, hydrocarbon compounds having an open chain structure (this is, non-aromatic) are called aliphatic (synonyms: acyclic, open chain); they include not only the fatty acids and other derivatives of the paraffin hydrocarbons, but also unsaturated compounds, such as the ethylene (alkene) and acetylene (alkyne) series.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Aliphatic" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliphatic, used under the GNU Free Documentation License