Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon
hydrocarbons composed of multiple aromatic rings
A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is any member of a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple fused aromatic rings. Most are produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter—by engine exhaust fumes, tobacco, incinerators, in roasted meats and cereals, or when biomass burns at lower temperatures as in forest fires. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings, and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. PAHs are uncharged, non-polar and planar. Many are colorless. Many of them are also found in fossil fuel deposits such as coal and in petroleum. Exposure to PAHs can lead to different types of cancer, fetal development complications, and cardiovascular issues.
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are discussed as possible starting materials for abiotic syntheses of materials required by the earliest forms of life.
Nomenclature and structure
The terms polyaromatic hydrocarbon, or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbon (abbreviated as PNA) are also used for this concept.
By definition, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons have multiple aromatic rings, precluding benzene from being considered a PAH. Sources such as the US EPA and CDC consider naphthalene to be the simplest PAH. Most authors exclude compounds that include heteroatoms in the rings, or carry substituents.
The public source identifies “Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon” as hydrocarbons composed of multiple aromatic rings. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Polycyclic, aromatic and hydrocarbon.
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This entry incorporates text from “Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.