What hydrocarbons are called alkanes?

Alkanes are hydrocarbons because they are made up of only carbon and hydrogen atoms. These atoms combine in proportions according to the general formula to form alkanes: CnH2n + 2, where the letter n represents the number of carbon atoms in each compound molecule.

There are three main types of alkanes. They are linear alkanes, branched alkanes and cyclic alkanes (which can also be called cycloalkanes). Alkanes form a homologous series of organic compounds (which means that all alkanes can be described by one general chemical formula).