Aliphatic vs aromatic hydrocarbon

[Irene Davila Mejia 1I]

Could someone explain what the difference between aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons is? I did not really understand their definitions from what the textbook says about them. Thank you!

[004583503_Lupe2E]

In the most simplest way of saying it:

aromatic hydrocarbon has a ring (like benzene) molecular structure.
-ARENES are under this category

aliphatic hydrocarbon does NOT have a ring shape, it has a chain like structure (like butane)
-ALKANES, ALKENES, ALKYNES are under this category

[Chem_Mod]

An aliphatic hydrocarbon is one that is completely saturated, aka no rings or double bonds.

An aromatic hydrocarbon would be like benzene, where it is placed in a cyclic structure and has alternating double bonds (called conjugation) contained within the ring. THere are more specifics like any species that has 4n+2 electrons will be aromatic, but any species with 4n electron is what is known as anti-aromatic and will be very unstable. An example of this is cyclobutadiene.