5.1 Summary

Carbon is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number is 6. Carbon is a part of group 14 on the periodic table, it is an nonmetallic and tetravalent.

In concept 5.1 it talks about how carbon is the main ingredient of organic molecules. In this chapter it includes the topics: Carbon Skeletons and Fuctional Groups, Monomers and Polymers, and Building and Breaking Polymers.










Carbon can have the ability to form bonds with one or more other carbon atoms. Carbon producting an endless variety of carbon skeletons. Carbon-based molecules are called organic molecules. H20 which is also a non-carbon-based molecule, so is oxygen, and ammonia, are called inorganic molecules. Carbon atoms have the ability to bond with other elements. Hydrocarbons are mainly composed of carbon and hydrogen. There are many kinds of groups and chains such as: straight chain, branched chain, hydroxyl group, carbonyl group, and amino group.




Monomers are large molecules which are built from many similar smaller molecular units. Also cells that link monomers together int long chains are called polymers. There are many kinds of chains for a polymer, there may be a straight one, which is a string of many individual cars.


Key Terms
-organic molecule
-inorganic molecule
-hydrocarbon
-functional group
-hydrophilic
-monomer
-polymer