Question

Why are alkanes called paraffins?
A.) Little affinity towards a general reagent
B.) Alkanes are inert substances
C.) Both a and b
D.) They act as an oil.

Answer 1

Hint: Try to recall that paraffin refers to many chemicals that are white soft solids and combustible liquid that consists of saturated hydrocarbons, mainly alkane series, obtained from a petroleum refinery. Now by using this you can easily find the correct option from the given options.

Complete step by step solution:
It is known to you that alkane is the modern IUPAC name for the class of hydrocarbons formerly known called ‘paraffin hydrocarbons’ or ‘paraffins’.
Paraffin is a truncation of Latin ‘parum affinum’ meaning ‘less affinity’ i.e. ‘less reactivity’.
Alkanes have only single bonds which are sigma covalent. These bonds are pretty strong and hard to break and to break one requires a large amount of energy. Basically alkanes are pretty stable because of this hence, they are inert substances.
Hence, alkanes are called paraffins because they have lesser affinity towards general reagents. In other words they are inert, not readily active.
Therefore, from above points we can conclude that option C is the correct option for the given question.

Note: It should be remembered to you that paraffin is also used as industrial solvent and lubricant.
Paraffin can also be used for the corrosion protection of various metals.
Also, you should remember that paraffin can be used for production of solvent or water-based corrosion protection compounds.