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... Alkanes Many carbon compounds are found in living organisms, this why their study is named organic chemistry Carbon is unique About 7 million compounds containing carbon and hydrogen are known to chemists This is far more than the number of compounds from all the other elements put together 1) Why carbon? * Electron structure makes it the first member of Gp 4 in the centre of the periodic table - this is responsible for its special properties * Carbon atom has 4 electrons in its outer shell - too many to lose or gain - the ions would have +4 or -4 (too highly charged) * All carbon compounds are covalent rather than ionic * Methane(CH4) C shares 4 electrons with 4 H atoms * Carbon forms strong covalent bonds with itself to form rings and chains this is called catenation * Each C atom can form 4 covalent bonds- chains may be straight or branched and can have other atoms

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