What is a substitute for carbon?

The element silicon has been much discussed as a hypothetical alternative to carbon. Silicon is in the same group as carbon on the periodic table and, like carbon, it is tetravalent.

What element is in the same family as carbon?

Carbon Family The five members are carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, and lead. All of these elements have four electrons in their outermost energy level. Of the Group 14 elements, only carbon and silicon form bonds as nonmetals (sharing electrons covalently).

What is a similar element?

All the elements in one group have the same number of valence electrons. Since elements in a group have the same number of valence electrons, they behave similarly in chemistry. An example would be the alkali metals (excepting hydrogen. Hydrogen is in this group only because it has one valence electron.

What are examples of things made of only carbon?

What Are Some Items Made of Carbon?

• Diamonds. •••
• Graphite. Graphite, like diamond, is an allotrope of carbon.
• Textiles. A plethora of textiles contain cellulose, which contains carbon.
• Life Itself. All life on Earth is carbon-based.

Is silicon a carbon?

The key difference between silicon and carbon is that the carbon is a nonmetal whereas the silicon is a metalloid. Carbon and silicon, both are in the same group (group 14) of the periodic table.

What periodic group is carbon?

Group 4A
Group 4A. Group 4A (or IVA) of the periodic table includes the nonmetal carbon (C), the metalloids silicon (Si) and germanium (Ge), the metals tin (Sn) and lead (Pb), and the yet-unnamed artificially-produced element ununquadium (Uuq).

Is carbon a polymer?

Carbon has a unique ability to form many covalent bonds, so it often forms polymers. A polymer is a large molecule that is made up of many smaller, repeating molecules, called monomers, which are joined together by covalent bonds.

How do you know which elements are similar?

The easiest way to identify elements with similar chemical properties is to look at a periodic table. The periodic table begins by grouping chemicals into the following categories: metals, semimetals, and nonmetals. Most periodic tables will use the same colors to color code the elements into groups with the same…

What similarities do elements in the same group have?

The elements in the same group has similar number of valence electrons. They have identical number of electrons in their outermost shell. e.g. All the alkali metals in Group 1 have 1 valence electron, so they all tend to react the same way with other substances.

What are facts about carbon?

Interesting Facts about Carbon About 20\% of the weight of living organisms is carbon. More compounds are known which contain carbon than don’t. Diamond is an excellent abrasive because it is the hardest common material and it also has the highest thermal conductivity.

What element family is carbon in?

Carbon belongs to the carbon family, which is group 14 on the periodic table. The other four members of the carbon group are silicon, germanium , tin , and lead. Each element in the carbon family only has two electrons in its outermost orbital, the p orbital.Carbon is the only truly nonmetallic element in the group.

What family does carbon belong to?

The carbon family is also called the carbon group, group 14, or group IV . At one time, this family was called the tetrels or tetragens because the elements belonged to group IV or as a reference to the four valence electrons of atoms of these elements. The family is also called the crystallogens.

What are the characteristics of the carbon family?

Carbon is a non-metal, silicon and germanium are metalloids, and tin and lead are metals. With 4 valence shell electrons, elements of the carbon family tend to form covalent compounds. With increasing mass and atomic radius these elements become increasingly metallic and have lower melting and boiling points.