Name: Basics of Organic Chemistry
Uploaded: 2019-07-19
Duration: 5 min 44 s
Description: Organic chemistry focuses on molecules mainly composed of carbon and hydrogen, along with a handful of other elements. Watch this video to learn more.

Question

How can carbon form a large number of compounds?

Accepted Answer

Carbon forms large number of compounds due to its unique characteristics.
1. Catenation: Carbon atoms have the unique ability to combine with one another to form chains. The chains may be straight, branched or cyclic. In other words, the valency of each carbon atom can be satisfied by combining with other carbon atoms. In this way, an indefinite number of carbon atoms can unite with one another to form molecules. This property of carbon atoms is known as catenation.

2. Tetravalency: Carbon is tetravalent. So, it can combine with four other carbon atoms and atoms of some other elements like $H, O, N, S, F, Cl, Br$ , etc., forming large number of compounds.

3. Ability to form multiple bonds: Carbon atom can form double or triple bonds with other carbon atoms or with atoms of oxygen, sulphur and nitrogen.

4. Isomerism: Most of the carbon compounds show the phenomenon of isomerism. For example, the formula $C_{2} H_{6} O$ represents two different compounds, ethanol and dimethyl ether, which have different structures.

5. Bond strength: As the size of the carbon atom is small, it makes strong bonds with other atoms to produce stable compounds. This further increases the number of carbon compounds.

How can carbon form a large number of compounds?

Important Questions on Carbon Compounds

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