STRUCTURAL ISOMERISM There are three main structural isomers, which are chain isomers, position isomers, and functional group isomers. Structural isomerism can lead to a diverse number of these types of isomers so that, if there are 40 carbon atoms to a molecule, there would be about 62 billion possible structural isomers. In chain isomers, the main carbon skeleton is not the same between the isomers. This can involve branched chains or continuous chains of carbon atoms. Figure 68 shows what structural isomers look like:
Figure 68.
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