Organic+chemistry

Carbon is in group 4 of the periodic table and it always forms covalent bonds. Since carbon has 4 electrons in its outershell it forms 4 covalent bonds. In organic compounds carbon always form 4 bonds, oxygen two and hydrogen one. Carbon can form multiple bonds. Carbon can form single, double and triple covalent bonds to itself and to other elements. The C-C bond is strong, which means that the bond is thermally stable and that it is the reason why carbon can form long chains and rings of carbon atoms. The C-H bond is also strong which contributes to the thermal stability of carbon compounds. Carbon cannot expand its octet of valence electrons. When bonded carbon has a full octet of electrons and the outershell cannot expand to include any more electrons. Functional group (containing O, H, N, halogens) can be attached to a hydrocarbon resulting in greater reactivity. The ability of carbon compound to form chains, leads to the existence of a series of compounds which have the same functional group but differ by number of carbon atoms in the chain.

Most organic compounds are non-polar and therefore insoluble in water. If the functional group can hydrogen bond then the organic molecule will be soluble in water as long as the hydrocarbon chain is relatively short.
 * //The characteristics of a homologous series: //**
 * The successive compounds differ from each other by a -CH 2 - unit (called a methylene group)
 * The compounds can be represented by a general formula
 * The compounds have similar chemical properties
 * They have physical properties which vary in a regular manner as the number of carbon atoms increases. The change in physical properties occur due to changes in the strength of the van der waal’s forces as molar mass increases or even in some cases as molecular polarity changes.

By the end of this lesson you should be able to: __**<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;">Next up- Empirical, molecular & structural formulas **__
 * Describe the properties of a homologous series.
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