Periodic Table of WIS

Carbon  C

 

Where is carbon used--or where does it impact oour everyday lives?

 

 

Carbon    C

Atomic number : 6  Atomic mass:12.01

Group number:14    Period number: 2

Melting point: 3550 oC (6422 oF)                                                    

Boiling point: 3800 oC (6872 oF)

Reaction with air: burns to produce carbon dioxide               

Reaction with water: no reaction

Electron configuration: 2,4

LANL.gov

Researcher Ines B

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grade 9, class of 2019, students on a Chemistry One field trip to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. in front of an enlargement of the Hope Diamond outside the Museum.

WIS Photographer

 

 

Used in jewelry--pure carbon with a tetrahedral structure is diamond. Diamond is the hardest naturally occuring material

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Used for fires--charcoal briquettes in barbeques.  Image of a charcaol barbeque in the Carriage House courtyard on Senior Prank Day, 2015.  Thank you Timothee C.

 

 

 

 

See a video of the structures of the different forms of carbon: allotropes--diamond, graphite and buckminster fullerene (buckyball).

 

Used in pencils in the form graphite--layers made of hexagonal arranements of carbon atoms easily slip over each other--leaving marks on paper.  Softer--artistic pencils are higher in carbon content--6B.  Harder pencils have more clay, 6H.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphite lubricant--a solid lubricant used in air compressors and some ball bearings