Environmental Transformations
When released in the environment, alkanes don't undergo rapid biodegradation, because they have no functional groups (like hydroxyl or carbonyl) that are needed by most organisms in order to metabolize the compound.
However, some bacteria can metabolize some alkanes (especially those linear and short), by oxidizing the terminal carbon atom. The product is an alcohol, that could be next oxidized to an aldehyde, and finally to a carboxylic acid. The resulting fatty acid could be metabolized through the fatty acid degradation pathway.
Read more about this topic: Alkane
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