Question

How do you calculate the degree of unsaturation?

Answer 1

Degree of saturation simply refers to the deficiency of hydrogen atom in the compound and indicates the presence of the double bond and the rings present in the compound. Now you can easily answer the given statement.

Complete answer:
- First of all, let’s discuss what is the degree of unsaturation. By the term degree of unsaturation, we mean to calculate the total number of the double or triple bonds and the rings which are present in the compound.
- Degree of unsaturation is also known as the index of hydrogen deficiency (IHD). It is so because it tells us about how many hydrogens atoms are missing due to the formation of the double bond or the triple bond.
- The other names of the degree of unsaturation involve the double bond equivalents and the saturation index.
Now, considering the statement as;
We can calculate the degree of unsaturation by using the formula as;
$DoU=\dfrac{2C+2+N-X-H}{2}$
Here, C represents the number of the carbon atoms present in the compound, N represents the number of the nitrogen atoms present in the compound if any, X represents the number of the halogen atoms (i.e. F,Cl, Br and I) present in the compound and H represents the number of hydrogen atoms present in the compound.
Thus, in this way, we can calculate the degree of unsaturation.

Note: Don’t get confused in the saturated and the unsaturated compound. The compound which consists of the single bonds without having the rings are called the saturated compounds whereas on the other hand, unsaturated compounds consist of double or triple bonds having the rings.