Hydrocarbon chains?

Question

Why is it that longer hydrocarbon chains have higher melting and boiling points than shorter chains?

Answer 1

The reason that longer chain molecules have higher boiling points is that longer chain molecules become wrapped around and enmeshed in each other much like the strands of spaghetti. More energy is needed to separate them than short chain molecules which have only weak forces of attraction for each other.

Answer 2

it requires more energy to separate hydrocarbons with longer chains because longer chain hydrocarbons possess some little hindeances like steric hinderance as a result of the clustering of the hydrogen and carbon atoms. they exact energy between their atoms as a result of the different charges they could posses. whie in shorter-chained hydrocarbons, their atoms are far apart from each other and their exact minimum amount of energy to one another cos of their distances.

Answer 3

Longer chains have more semi-polar regions which, when added together, form stronger bonds to neighboring molecules. Stronger bonds need a larger force to break them, that larger force is present at higher temperatures.