Fatty acid

In chemistry, especially biochemistry, an organic acid, or carboxylic acid, with a long aliphatic tail, either saturated or unsaturated.

Industrially, fatty acids are produced by the hydrolysis of the ester linkages in a a fat or biological oil, with the removal of glycerine.

Saturated fatty acids are of the form

  O
HOC-R

where

R = CH2(CH2)nCH3

Unsaturated fatty acids are of similar form, except that one or more alkene functional groups exist along the chain, substituting singly-bonded

-CH2-CH2-

portions of the chain with doubly-bonded

-CH=CH- 

portions.