Question

What do you understand by " Carbon is tetravalent compund "

Answer 1

In chemistry , tetravalence is the state of an atom with four valence electrons available for covalent chemical bonding in its outermost electron shell , giving the atom a chemical valency of four. An example is methane (CH₄): the tetravalent carbon atom forms a covalent bond with four hydrogen atoms. The carbon atom is called tetravalent because it forms 4 covalent bonds. A carbon atom has a total of six electrons occupying the first two shells, i.e., the K-shell has two electrons and the L-shell has four electrons. This distribution indicates that in the outermost shell there are one completely filled 's' orbital and two half-filled 'p' orbitals, showing carbon to be a divalent atom. But in actuality, carbon displays tetravalency in the combined state. Therefore, a carbon atom has four valence electrons.