Carbon

** Carbon ** is the chemical represented by the symbol ** C. ** It has an atomic number of 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is non metallic and tetravagent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. There are three naturally occurring isotope, with 12C and 13C being stable, while 14C is radioactive decaying with a h aft life of about 5,730 years. Carbon is one of the most common elements in our daily diets, along with hydrogen. Most fats are built up of hydro-carbon chains. All life on earth is based off of carbon.


 * Name:** Carbon
 * Symbol:** C
 * Atomic Number:** 6
 * Atomic Mass:** 12.0107 amu
 * Melting Point:** 3500.0 °C (3773.15 K, 6332.0 °F)
 * Boiling Point:** 4827.0 °C (5100.15 K, 8720.6 °F)
 * Number of Protons/Electrons:** 6
 * Number of Neutrons:** 6
 * Classification:**Non-metal
 * Crystal Structure:** Hexagonal
 * Density @ 293 K:** 2.62 g/cm3
 * Color:** May be black
 * Number of Energy Levels:** 2
 * First Energy Level:**2
 * Second Energy Level:**4

Isotopes

 * ** Isotope ** || ** Half Life ** ||
 * C-11 || 20.3 minutes ||
 * C-12 || Stable ||
 * C-13 || Stable ||
 * C-14 || 5730.0 years ||
 * C-15 || 2.5 seconds ||

Facts
There are several allotropes of which the best known are graphite, diamond, and amorphous carbon. The physical properties of carbon vary widely with the allotropic form. For example, diamond is highly transparent, while graphite is opaque and black. Diamond is among the hardest materials known, while graphite is soft enough to form a streak on paper (hence its name, from the Greek word "to write"). Diamond has a very low electrical activities, while graphite is a very good conductor. Under normal conditions, diamond has the highest thermal activities of all know materials.
 * Date of Discovery:** Known to the ancients **Discoverer:** Unknown **Name Origin:** From the Latin //carbo// (coal) **Uses:** steel, filters **Obtained From:** burning with insufficient oxygen

Carbon is distributed very widely in nature. It is found in abundance in the sun, stars, comets, and atmospheres of most planets.

Carbon makes up the majority of our organic world. From food to the hardest material on earth (diamond), carbon is a building block for many aspects of nature. It's also a vital component of photosynthesis.

Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe. Carbon is considered to be nontoxic. Carbon can take the form of an extremley hard substance or soft substance.

Application of Carbon
Carbon is essential to all living systems, and without it, life as we know it could not exsist. Major economic uses of carbon other than food and wood mis mainly in the form of hydrocarbons. The most notable hydrocarbons are fossil fuel methane gas and crude oil. Crude oil is mainly used by the petrochemical industry which produces things such as gasoline and kerason, which happens through as distillation process.  [|Wool], [|cashmere] and [|silk] plastics are made from synthetic carbon polymers, these polymers come from animal origin. In addition, oxygen and nitrogen atoms are included in the main polymer chain.

Precautions of Carbon
Pure carbon has a very low toxicity level to humans, which means it can be safely handled and even ingested when it is the form of either graphite or charcoal. Carbon is resistant to dissolution or chemical attack, even in the acidic contents of the digestive system of the human body. When it enters the body's tissues, it is likely to remain there indefinitly. Carbon black was probably one of the first forms of today's tattoo.

**The Carbon Cycle**


Carbon is important for life on earth because of the carbon cycle.the carbon cycle illustrates the quantity of carbon that is stored in differing reservoirs or moving through the system every year. The quantity is expressed in gigatonnes (Gt). Photosynthesis moves a big amount of carbon with 61 Gt/yr. 90 Gt/year is being contributed to the atmospheric CO 2 from the ocean. Respiration of forests move 60 Gt/yr of carbon into atmospheric CO 2 while deforestation contributes and extra 1.5 Gt/yr. However reforestation takes .5 Gt/yr out of the atmospheric CO 2. 92 Gt/yr of atmospheric CO 2 is being moved to the oceans. 610 Gt is being stored in forests. This is just one of the many reasons to prevent and contain forest fires. A huge amount of carbon would be released into the air if we are not careful. The atmosphere alone holds 750 Gt. Surface water contains 1.0x103 Gt of carbon while the deep ocean holds even more carbon with 3.8x104 Gt. Soils hold 1.6x103 Gt, carbonate minerals in rocks hold 1.8x107, and sand and silt hold 1.2x103 Gt. The most carbon is stored in fossil fuels with a huge amount of 2.5x107 Gt. The burning of fossil fuels contributes 6 Gt/yr to the atmospheric carbon. Carbon sinks are natural processes that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Carbon has the highest melting/sublimation point of the elements. The melting point of diamond is ~3550°C, with the sublimation point of carbon around 3800°C. **Production of Carbon:**Carbon can be produced by graphite or diamonds. Graphite is most common in India, China, Brazil and North Korea.
 * Interesting Fact About Carbon:**

**__10 important facts about carbon__**


 * 1) Carbon is the basis for organic chemistry, as it occurs in all living organisms.
 * 2) Carbon is a nonmetal that can bond with itself and many otherchemical elements, forming nearly ten million compounds.
 * 3) Elemental carbon can take the form of one of the hardest substances (diamond) or one of the softest (graphite).
 * 4) Carbon is made in the interiors of stars, though it was not produced in the Big Bang.
 * 5) Carbon compounds have limitless uses. In its elemental form, diamond is a gemstone and used for drilling/cutting; graphite is used in pencils, as a lubricant, and to protect against rust; while charcoal is used to remove toxins, tastes, and odors. The isotope Carbon-14 is used in radiocarbon dating.
 * 6) Carbon has the highest melting/sublimation point of the elements. The melting point of diamond is ~3550°C, with the sublimation point of carbon around 3800°C.
 * 7) Pure carbon exists free in nature and has been known since prehistoric time.
 * 8) The origin of the name 'carbon' comes from the Latin word //carbo//, for charcoal. The German and French words for charoal are similar.
 * 9) Pure carbon is considered non-toxic, although inhalation of fine particles, such as soot, can damage lung tissue.
 * 10) Carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the universe (hydrogen, helium, and oxygen are found in higher amounts, by mass).

Graphite
Commercially viable natural deposits of graphite occur in many parts of the world, but the most important sources economically are in China, India, Brazil and North Korea. Graphite deposits are of metamorphic origin, found in association with quartz, mica and feldspars in schists, gneisses and metamorphosed sandstones and limestone as lenses or veins, sometimes of a meter or more in thickness. Deposits of graphite in Borrowdale, Cumberland, England were at first of sufficient size and purity that, until the 19th century, pencils were made simply by sawing blocks of natural graphite into strips before encasing the strips in wood. Today, smaller deposits of graphite are obtained by crushing the parent rock and floating the lighter graphite out on water