Alkanes and Alcohols-- intermolecular forces?

Question

What kind of bonding/intermolecular forces do alkanes have? (Dipole, dispersion, or hydrogen?)
How about alcohols?
Could you explain?

THANKS!

Answer 1

For Hydrogen bonding, a hydrogen atom should be attached to a highly electronegative element viz. F, O or N (Sometimes, even Cl). This causes a higly polar bond to form, with a slight positive charge on H atom and slight negative on the e-ve atom. The slightly negative atoms atttract the slightly positive atoms of the other molecules and hence a bond forms.

Thus Alkanes dont have hydrogen bonding, while alcohols do, due to the O=H bond.

Also, Alkanes are saturated and dont have any polarity. Hence they don't have dipoles.
London's Dispersion Forces occur randomly, hence these bonds are shown by these compounds....


Hope I provided enough data and it was helpful.