Will you be my Friend? Carbon seems to be a very friendly element. So far we have been looking at compounds of carbon and hydrogen. But carbon also forms bonds with other elements such as halogens, oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur. In a hydrocarbon chain, one or more hydrogens can be replaced by these elements, such…

Chains, Branches and Rings In the earlier section, we mentioned the carbon compounds methane, ethane and propane, containing respectively 1, 2 and 3 carbon atoms. Such ‘chains’ of carbon atoms can contain tens of carbon atoms. The names and structures of six of these are given in Table 4.2.