Why is carbon so important to the chemistry of living things?
• Basically, the reason for this is the versatility of structures that carbon can form with itself and with other atoms. • Carbon can form four covalent bonds and is capable of forming bonds with a variety of geometries • single, double and triple bonds • tetrahedral, or flat geometries • linear or branching structures • polar or non-polar bonds • These features allow carbon to form a wide variety of molecules with dramatically different chemical characteristics. Carbon’s versatile bonding is the basis for isomers, molecules with the same molecular formula but different structures and thus different properties. The 3 types of isomers are: • structural isomers, • geometric isomers (cis, trans), and • optical (stereo or chiral) isomers or enantiomers (D, L) Carbon skeletons vary in length and shape and possess bonding sites for atoms of other elements such as oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur, and hydrogen. When carbon combines covalently with these elements various functional groups are formed.
