Despite being less reactive,alkanes are highly flammable I read in my book that alkanes are saturated compunds and the valencies of carbon are satisfied by single bonds. I knew that propane and butane are highly flammable and could cause explosion.
My question
If alkanes are less reactive then why they are highly flammable and could cause unfortunate explosion?
In chemistry, reactive and flammable are two different term. For example, Diethyl ether is a rather non-reactive material but it is highly flammable.
In your case, propane or butane are mostly unreactive to common chemicals, but it does react with oxygen at an elevated temperature- that is they are flammable. Under similar condition, propene or butene are more flammable.