Carbon and Organic Chemistry

14

These skills are usually tested on the SAT Subject Test in Chemistry. You
should be able to...

Describe the bonding patterns of carbon and its allotropic forms.

Explain the structural pattern and naming of the alkanes,

alkenes, and alkynes, and their isomers.

Show graphically how hydrocarbons can be changed and the

development of these functional groups, their structures, and their

names: alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, esters, and amines.

This chapter will review and strengthen these skills. Be sure to do the
Practice Exercises at the end of the chapter.

Carbon is unique. It forms inorganic substances such as carbon dioxide,

graphite, and diamonds. It also forms organic substances without which life could
not exist. It forms planar substances, tetrahedrons, and rings.

CARBON

Forms of Carbon

The element carbon occurs mainly in three allotropic forms: diamond, graphite,
and amorphous (although some evidence shows the amorphous forms have some
crystalline structure). In the mid-1980s, fullerenes were identified as a new
allotropic form of carbon. They are found in soot that forms when carbon-
containing materials are burned with limited oxygen. Their structure consists of
near-spherical cages of carbon atoms resembling geodesic domes.

TIP

Allotropic forms of carbon:

diamond

graphite

amorphous

fullerenes