Question

Cooking oil and gasoline (a hydrocarbon) are not amphipathic molecules because they ________. do not have a polar or charged region have hydrophobic and hydrophilic regions are highly reduced molecules do not have a nonpolar region

Answer 1

Cooking oil and gasoline (a hydrocarbon) are not amphipathic molecules because they do not have a polar or charged region. Amphipathic hydrocarbons or molecules are those with both hydrophillic (water loving ends) ends and hydrophobic ends (water hating ends). Examples of such molecules are phospholipids and detergents such as soaps and soapless detergents. Cooking oil and gasoline on the other hand are purely hdrophobic or non-polar (water hating), meaning they can not react with water.

Answer 2

Cooking oil and gasoline do not have polar or charged regions hence they are termed hydrophobic molecules (these compounds do not mix with water). Amphipathic molecules are called as such because they have both polar or charged region and a non-polar or uncharged region.

A popular example is soap which has properties of a polar and a non-polar compound. Another example is the cell membrane which is composed of phospholipid bilayer, whereas the phospholipid component has a hydrophilic head and a hydrophobic tail which makes it amphipathic.