What is the general formula for saturated and unsaturated fatty acids? ?

Question

I have AP Biology summer homework in which we need to draw the chemical formula for functional groups and monomers. I have had trouble finding a formula for Saturated and Unsaturated fatty acids.

Answer 1

A plain old saturated fatty acid is just a really long acid chain.

So it's CH3(CH2)nCOOH

"saturated" means that every carbon has the maximum number of hydrogens on it, so there are no carbon-carbon double bonds.

An unsaturated fatty acid has double bonds in there, so it's not all (CH2)s, you also get some CHs.

And natural unsaturated fatty acids have cis double bonds \/\\/\, for example, and trans fats happen when you get a trans /\=/\ double bond.

"Monounsaturated" means one double bond, "polyunsaturated" means two or more double bonds.