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- Subject: Chemistry
- AS: AS90648
- Level: 1
- Credits: 3
- External
Chemistry 1.7 Describe properties and reactions of carbon and its compounds
Subject content
Make sure you have up-to-date course notes and don't forget to use them. If you haven't got them, see your teacher.
You may be tested on:
- properties and reactions of carbon, such as:
- state at room temperature, colour, and reaction with oxygen
- carbon cycle
- allotropes of carbon – structure, physical properties, and uses
- compounds of carbon, restricted to the following:
- oxides of carbon
- hydrocarbons (straight chain alkanes up to six carbon atoms, ethene, and propene), methanol, ethanol and ethanoic acid, polymers formed from ethene and propene. (Assessment will include naming (using IUPAC nomenclature) and writing structural formulae.)
- properties and reactions of oxides of carbon:
- properties of carbon dioxide – density, solubility in water, the acidic nature of its aqueous solution, inability to support combustion, reaction with lime water
- uses of carbon dioxide related to properties
- laboratory preparation of carbon dioxide
- combustion of carbon monoxide
- properties and reactions of hydrocarbons and alcohols
- complete and incomplete combustion reactions (including balanced equations)
- solubility in water
- melting and/or boiling points
- separation of hydrocarbons by fractional distillation
- production of ethanol by fermentation
- formation of ethanoic acid from ethanol (details of oxidants and balanced equations not included)
- formation of polymers from ethene and propene
- application of understanding of properties:
- use of organic compounds as fuels (Check out this BBC website about crude oil and oil products and its section on the formation of polymers.)
- impact of carbon and its combustion products on human health and the environment, for example, global warming. (Check out this site’s very readable information on carbon dioxide and its role in global warming.)
Check out the carbon element on the WebElements periodic table by clicking onto C, for Carbon.
A lot of information, at your level, about organic chemistry that relates to carbon, carbon compounds, and their uses can be found at Extra GCSE organic chemistry.
Test yourself by naming some simple carbon compounds on Quia - Organic nomenclature.
