Question

Explain the properties of carbon compounds.

Answer 1

The properties of carbon compounds are as follows:
- Low melting point

- Poor conductor of electricity
- Tetravalency: Tetra means four and valency mean the number of electrons gained or lost or shared to attain stable configuration. So, tetravalency refers to the phenomenon of sharing four electrons by an element to attain stable condition.

Now, the electronic configuration of carbon is 2, 4. It shares four electrons with other elements to attain a stable configuration.
- Catenation: This is a property of self-linking. This property depends on size of atom which will decide the M - M bond strength. This property is more unique for carbon as more than thousand atoms of carbon can be linked together.