Praveen kumar

There are lots of reasons why carbon does forms large number of carbon compounds .I’m giving U few of them. The properties which carbon forms many compound is also know as Catenation. Catenation: The tendency of an element to form chains of identical atoms is called catenation. This tendency is observed in the case of non-metals showing covalency of two or more. However, this property is maximum in carbon as it can combine with other carbon atoms by single, double or triple covalent bonds. The bonding can be extended to form long open chain (straight or branched) or closed ones. Catenation property depends upon the value of bond energy which is maximum in the case of carbon. Bond: C-C Si-Si S-S P-P N-N O-O Bond energy: 83 54 54 50 39 35 (approximately) (kcal/mol) The stability or the strength of the bond decreases as the bond energy decreases. Hence, the tendency of catenation decreases in the following manner; C> Si ~ S > P > N > O Tendency to combine with other non-metals: Carbon has the ability to form strong covalent bonds with many other atoms such as H, O, S, N, Cl, Br, I, etc. The C-C bond energy is approximately equals to the magnitude of bond energies between carbon and various other atoms. Bond C-C C-H C-O C-Cl C-N C-Br Bond energy 83.0 97.0 86.0 81.0 73.0 68.0 (approximately) (kcal/mol) Isomerism is one of the reason also. Finally The conclusion is ... There are two main reasons: It forms a large number of bonds with other atoms(4 per carbon atom) and it really likes bonding to other carbon atoms. This forms a long chain of carbons(often called the skeleton of the molecule) which can be very long. And each carbon can have 2 more atoms attached to it besides the carbons in the chain.