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How many hydrogen atoms would you expect to bind to carbon?
As the building block of all organic molecules, carbon is of particular interest to us. Carbon (4 electrons in the valence shell) combines with four hydrogen atoms to form a stable covalent compound where it shares 8 electrons, while each hydrogen shares 2.
What does it mean when a carbon atom is tetravalent?
four covalent bonds
Being tetravalent means being able to form four covalent bonds. Carbon is tetravalent, because it needs four more electrons to fill its valence shell. By forming four covalent bonds, carbon gets credit for four additional shared electrons, and this stabilizes the atom.
How many hydrogen atoms can bind to one carbon atom?
The number of hydrogen atoms that can bind to one carbon would be four. Tetravalent means it can form four bonds to other atoms. So, the answer should be four. Hope this answers the question.
Why does carbon form as many bonds as possible?
Remember that the formation of a bond always lowers the energy of a system. It therefore makes sense that a carbon atom would form as many bonds as possible, resulting in the most stable possible molecular species. What happens if we combine hydrogen with carbon? Do we get a compound with properties intermediate between the two?
How are atoms of carbon linked together to form molecules?
Similarly atoms of carbon can be linked together in various ways to form diamond, graphite, and graphene (see Chapter 3). Now we move on to molecules involving atoms of carbon and other elements.
Why does carbon have 8 valence electrons and 4 electrons?
Because carbon has four valence electrons and each of the four hydrogens has one electron the result is a total of eight electrons distributed in four bonding orbitals. Recall that we say the hybridization of carbon is sp3 and the arrangement of the bonds is tetrahedral, which means the angle between orbitals (and the C–H bonds) is 109.5º.