What is Carbon?
Carbon is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol C and atomic number 6. An abundant nonmetallic, tetravalent element, carbon has several allotropic forms.
Carbon occurs in all organic life and is the basis of organic chemistry. This nonmetal also has the interesting chemical property of being able to bond with itself and a wide variety of other elements, forming nearly ten million known compounds. When united with oxygen it forms carbon dioxide, which is vital to plant growth. When united with hydrogen, it forms various compounds called hydrocarbons which are essential to industry in the form of fossil fuels. When combined with both oxygen and hydrogen it can form many groups of compounds including fatty acids, which are essential to life, and esters, which give flavor to many fruits. The isotope carbon-14 is commonly used in radioactive dating.
Carbon is a remarkable element for many reasons. Its different forms include the hardest naturally occurring substance (diamond) and one of the softest substances (graphite) known. Moreover, it has a great affinity for bonding with other small atoms, including other carbon atoms, and its small size makes it capable of forming multiple bonds. Because of these properties, carbon is known to form nearly ten million different compounds, the large majority of all chemical compounds. Carbon compounds form the basis of all life on Earth and the carbon-nitrogen cycle provides some of the energy produced by the Sun and other stars. Moreover, carbon has the highest melting/sublimation point of all elements. At atmospheric pressure it has no actual melting point as its triple point is at 10 MPa (100 bar) so it sublimates above 4000 K. Thus it remains solid at higher temperatures than the highest melting point metals like tungsten or rhenium, regardless of its allotropic form.
Carbon was not created during the Big Bang due to the fact that it needs a triple collision of alpha particles (helium nuclei) to be produced. The universe initially expanded and cooled too fast for that to be possible. It is produced, however, in the interior of stars in the horizontal branch, where stars transform a helium core into carbon by means of the triple-alpha process. It was also created in a multi-atomic state.
|
|
Relevant sites for Carbon:
Stoichiometry: Elemental Analysis
Elemental Analysis: Carbon and Hydrogen. Composition by Mass ... of elemental analysis is for carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen (CHN analysis).
JAIC 1994, Volume 33, Number 2, Article 8 (pp. 171 to 184)
The proportions of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen in the sample determined that ... The main advantage of organic elemental analysis is that it is readily ..
Combustion Analysis
... nitrogen is given as N2 or even as an amount of NH3 from a different analysis. ... g sample of a compound known to contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen undergoes ...
Theory
The technique of elemental analysis is a very old and well understood, though ... to determine any compound's relative percents of carbon hydrogen and nitrogen. .
Method 440.0 - Determination of Carbon and Nitrogen in Sediments and Particulates of Estuarine/Coastal Waters Using ... (PDF)
enced in the theory and application of elemental analysis. 3.5 ... in turn by difference, hydrogen (as water vapor), C (as ...
Carbon dioxide absorption of poly(ionic liquid)s with different ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
tested by Midwest Microlab LLC (US). The CO. 2. sorption of the. poly(ionic liquid)s was measured using a CAHN 1000 Electrobalance, ...
The Measurement of Dissolved Organic and Particulate Carbon in Seawater
DW Menzel, RF Vaccaro - Limnology and Oceanography, 1964 - JSTOR
... There- fore, a series of organic compounds was dissolved in ... been sparged with pure
oxygen or nitrogen for one ... to remove CO from the system after each analysis. ...
Liebiganal
... a minimum of 2 mg for Carbon/Hydrogen/Nitrogen analysis, reports typical errors ... Development of reliable, convenient elemental analysis by combustion was the ...
Research School of Biological Sciences
... well as elemental analyses of carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen (as water) and ... elemental analyser or in parallel with isotopic analysis of carbon and nitrogen. ...
TCC report, Dec. 1999
Elemental analysis including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and heavy metal ... elemental analyses include carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen (CHN) analysis, ...
Analytical chemistry - WebArticles.com
... of life contain carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and others, in many complex structures. ... Proteomics - the analysis of protein concentrations and ...
|
