Answer to Question #173665 in Organic Chemistry for John doe

Question

In general, alkanes adopt their staggered conformations preferentially to their eclipse conformations in order to minimize what type of molecular strain?

Answer 1

The ethane molecule in the eclipsed conformation is said to suffer from torsional strain and by a rotation around the carbon carbon bond to the staggered conformation around 12.5 kJ/mol of torsional energy is released.