In Organic Chemistry, everything is surrounded by carbon compounds. It is one of the most essential components of living organisms. There are two stable isotopes of carbon 12C and 13C. After these two one more isotope of carbon is present 14C. Carbon is used for radiocarbon dating and it is also a radioisotope with a half-life of 5770 years.
- One of the most amazing properties of carbon is its ability to make long carbon chains and rings. This property of carbon is known as catenation.
- Carbon has many special abilities out of all one unique ability is that carbon forms pπ-pπ bonds which are nothing but double or triple bonds with itself and with other electronegative atoms like oxygen and nitrogen.
- Just because of these two properties of carbon i.e catenation and multiple bond formation, it has the number of allotropic forms.
- Carbon atoms form tetravalent bonds , so that one carbon atom forms a bond with four carbon atoms and this structure can be repeated endlessly without disturbing the stability of the bonds.