What types of bonds do carbon atoms form?

Answer 1

they form a carbon-carbon covalent bond in which electrons are shared. Hope I've helped!

ANSWERCarbon forms both covalent bonds with other elements of similar electronegativity eg carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen. It forms polar covalent bonds with elements of slightly different electronegativity eg. carbon=oxygen. It also forms ionic bonds with elements with much different electronegativity eg in Calcium carbide.

Answer 2

The most obvious answer in your case would be that carbon can form a single bond, a double bond, or a triple bond to other atoms. These are all classified as covalent bonds, because the electrons are "shared" between the atoms.

Carbon has four electrons in its outer (valence) shell that it can donate.

Methane (CH4) is an example in which carbon has only single bonds. Hydrogen only has one electron, so it cannot share the 2 or 3 electrons necessary for double and triple bonds, respectively. In methane, carbon shares one of its four electrons with each hydrogen.

Ethylene, aka ethene (C2H4, or H2C=CH2) has a double bond between the carbon atoms. Each carbon shares two electrons with two hydrogens, and two electrons to the other carbon. In the double bond, each carbon donates 2 electrons to the bond, so there is a total of 4 electrons in the bond. [EXTRA: A useful to way to think about these electrons is that they're stuck right between the carbon atoms, as in Lewis Structures, but this is actually inaccurate; electrons are much more spread out across the molecule, which comes from quantum mechanics. Don't worry about that detail, since it's probably too much information at this point if you're asking this kind of question. This doesn't mean that you can't come back and learn more about this later on, there is always more to learn and discover with chemistry :P]

Acetylene, aka ethyne (C2H2, or HC≡CH) has a triple bond between the carbon atoms. Each carbon donates one electron to the carbon-hydrogen bond, and three electrons to the carbon-carbon bond. So, there is a total of 6 electrons in between the carbon atoms.

Technically, carbon could form an ionic bond with something, but this would require carbon to lose or gain an electron to form an ion. This would happen with alkali and alkaline earth metals, for example, since they're so "eager" to give away their electrons and achieve a stable octet. However, carbon is important mostly because of its ability to form four covalent bonds, so that any ionic activity is just a sideshow. You can probably ignore carbon ionic bonds for now.

If you want to learn more about bonding in general (which I think you will find useful), read on.

When you have a nucleus with one more proton, seven instead of six, you would have a positive charge if you had the same number of electrons as carbon. So, the neutral atom, which is called nitrogen, has one more electron. However, nitrogen doesn't form NH5, so it doesn't share those five electrons. Instead, the extra electron pairs up with one of the other electrons, creating a "lone pair." This electron pair doesn't participate in bonding; this leaves three electrons that can bond. Therefore, we can produce, in reality, NH3, which is called ammonia. Nitrogen can also donate these three electrons to a nitrogen-nitrogen bond, which is a triple bond. When you have pure nitrogen, you actually have N2, or N≡N.

When you add another proton to the nucleus, you also need to add another electron. Again, this extra electron pairs up with another, so in oxygen, you have two "lone pairs," and only two electrons that can bond. So when you react it with hydrogen, you get H2O, not H6O. Oxygen can also use these two bonding electrons to make a double bond with another oxygen atom, to form the gas O2, or O=O.

Toss in another proton and an electron, and you have three lone pairs, and only one electron that can bond. So, if hydrogen reacts with fluorine, it makes HF, not H7F. Again, when fluorine reacts with itself, it makes F2, or F-F.

Finally, when you toss in another proton and electron, the electron pairs up with this last bondable electron. So, in Neon, you have four lone pairs, and no electrons left to bond. So, neon cannot bond with anything, and is called a "noble gas."

So in summary, carbon has 4 electrons it can make bonds with, nitrogen has 3, oxygen has 2, fluorine has 1, and neon has none.

[EXTRA: If you guessed that there is more to the story than this, then you're right again. If you think about oxygen (O2) like this, then there isn't any room for unpaired electrons: for each atom has two lone pairs and two electrons participating in a double bond. But, as it turns out, diatomic oxygen is paramagnetic, which must result from unpaired electrons. In the most accurate model that we have, Molecular Orbital (MO) theory, it can be shown that diatomic oxygen actually does have two unpaired electrons. However, for the most part, the Lewis Theory is correct and can be used for many applications. Although MO is extremely accurate (it uses quantum mechanics, which is generally extremely accurate), it is also unwieldy and difficult to use in most circumstances. As the saying goes: Lewis is too good to be true, and MO is too true to be good.]

[EXTRA 2: Since carbon has four bonding electrons, you might be wondering: why doesn't it form a quadruple bond with another carbon? Well, if you really want to know, you can read http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2000-10/971992131.Ch.r.html. For you, it's probably just a waste of time, sort of like YouTube but less entertaining. Maybe more enlightening though.]

Soooooooooo the answer is probably single, double, and triple covalent bonds. :D

Answer 3

Single,double,and triple covalent bonds.

straight branched or ringed also works

Answer 4

Carbon atoms form covalent bond.

Answer 5

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