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How are cyclohexane rings represented in structural formulas?
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Several methods of representing a molecule's structure. In Lewis structures, element symbols represent atoms, and dots represent electrons surrounding them. A pair of shared electrons (covalent bond) may also be shown as a single dash. The ball-and-stick model better illustrates the spatial arrangement of the atoms. For aromatic compounds, the Kekulé structure is common, in which each bond is represented by a dash, carbon atoms are implied where two or more lines meet, and hydrogen atoms are usually omitted. Bond-line formulas, similar to the Kekulé structure, are often used for complex nonaromatic organic compounds. Sugars are often drawn as Fischer projections, in which the carbon “backbone” is drawn as a straight vertical line, with carbon atoms implied where horizontal lines intersect the vertical one.
In structural formulas, it is customary to represent cyclohexane and other cycloalkane rings as polygons.1
When using this representation, each corner of the polygon corresponds to a carbon atom. It is understood that each of these carbon atoms is attached to the necessary number of hydrogen atoms required to complete its four chemical bonds. While a simple hexagon is often used to depict the ring, this planar representation does not reflect the actual three-dimensional shape of the molecule, as cyclohexane typically adopts a "puckered" chair conformation to minimize torsional and angle strain.12