Ethylene
![](/Images/godic/202501/30/Ethylene-CRC-MW-dimensions-2D4531.png")
![Main industrial uses of ethylene. Clockwise from the upper right: its conversions to ethylene oxide, precursor to ethylene glycol; to ethylbenzene, precursor to styrene; to various kinds of polyethylene; to ethylene dichloride, precursor to vinyl chloride.](/Images/godic/202501/30/C2H4uses4532.png")
![An ethylene signal transduction pathway. Ethylene permeates the membrane and binds to a receptor on the endoplasmic reticulum. The receptor releases the repressed EIN2. This then activates a signal transduction pathway which activates a regulatory genes that eventually trigger an Ethylene response. The activated DNA is transcribed into mRNA which is then translated into a functional enzyme that is used for ethylene biosynthesis.](/Images/godic/202501/30/Ethylene_Signal_Transduction.svg4532.png")
![The Yang cycle](/Images/godic/202501/30/Yang-cycle4532.png")
Ethylene (IUPAC name: ethene) is a hydrocarbon which has the formula C
2H
4 or H2C=CH2. It is a colorless flammable gas with a faint "sweet and musky" odor when pure. It is the simplest alkene (a hydrocarbon with carbon-carbon double bonds), and the second simplest unsaturated hydrocarbon after acetylene (C
2H
2).