• Question: Why is carbon so versatile?

    Asked by Barry Scott to Ian on 11 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Ian Cade

      Ian Cade answered on 11 Nov 2014:

      There are two main aspects of carbon as an element that means it can form a huge array of different structures:

      1) It is tetravalent – it can form up to four single bonds, which means there are simply more ways to connect carbon than there would be if it could only form for example two bonds (this would leave you only able to form chains of atoms).

      2) It is a 2nd row element so it is relatively small… which means that it can form strong double and triple bonds (essentially these multiple bonds only form if you can get the atoms quite close to each other – p-orbital overlap)

      3) It is not especially electronegative or electropositive (doesn’t really give up or attract electrons strongly – pauling electronegativity scale C=2.55, max = 4.0 (F) and min = 0.7 (Fr)) so it can form strong covalent bonds.

      … ok there are 3 reasons…

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