What type of compounds are natural gas, fuel oil, and propane classified as?

Natural gas, fuel oil, and propane are classified as hydrocarbons because they are organic compounds primarily made up of hydrogen and carbon atoms. Hydrocarbons are a broad category that includes various types of compounds, including alkanes, alkenes, and aromatics.

Natural gas is mainly composed of methane, which is an alkane, while propane is also an alkane. Fuel oil can contain a mixture of different hydrocarbons, including heavier alkanes and aromatics, but fundamentally, all of these compounds share the characteristic of being hydrocarbons. This classification emphasizes that they predominantly derive from fossil fuels and have similar chemical properties related to their composition of carbon and hydrogen.

While alkanes are indeed a subset of hydrocarbons, classifying these fuels simply as hydrocarbons encompasses a broader range of compounds and reflects their fundamental chemical structure. Aromatics and alcohols represent distinctly different classes of compounds with unique structures and properties, which do not apply to natural gas, fuel oil, and propane.