Why carbon

Almost all living things present on our earth contain carbon. As we read earlier even most parts of our body are made up of carbon, lots of it. For example, if we weigh 100 pounds, approximately 18 pounds of our body is made up of carbon. And we can declare plants as almost half carbon consistency. But we can question if there is so much carbon present everywhere why is everything we see is not black? 

The explanation is carbon C an element is capable of combining easily with almost every other material to form a completely new compound. Thus, the new compounds formed are pretty different from pure carbon. 

The tiniest possible particle of any physical element is atoms such as carbon and oxygen. So a carbon atom combines pretty easily with two oxygen atoms to make the compound called carbon dioxide, even the valency of carbon is four. 

Do you know what happens to all this dead plant and animal or organic stuff? All these dead plants and animals in the water turn into what we now call fossil fuels for example oil, coal, and natural gas. Fossil fuel is the stuff we now use to energise our world. As these fossils are made from dead plants and animals they are rich in carbon content so we burn these carbon-rich materials for the use of cars, trucks, planes, trains, power plants, heaters, speed boats, barbecues, and many other things that require energy.

Diamonds

Out of all the carbon-bearing minerals that are varied from extreme high pressure, including crystalline forms that are both known and those which are yet to be discovered, among these the compound that will always hold the pride of the place is diamond. Diamond holds the place of the ideal nook between the scarce and rare. 

Though today the diamonds are sufficient enough that almost everyone can own one. Diamonds are composed of a single element of carbon and the arrangement of the C atoms present in the lattice provides the diamond with its amazing properties. From the allotropes of carbon, the hardest known material is the diamond, and for graphite, we own the softest known material. This vast change is done by just changing or rearranging the way the atoms are bonded together.

The known relationship between diamond and graphite is thermodynamic and kinetic.  The graphite is only a few eV more stable than diamond, at normal temperature and pressure. However, the fact that diamond exists at all is because of the very large activation barrier formed because of the conversion between the two. The rule of transformation is not applicable for this allotropes of carbon because once a diamond is formed it cannot be converted back to the other form, graphite because the barrier between the two is too high. 

So the diamond is referred to as metastable, since it is kinetically stable and not thermodynamically stable. Diamond is usually formed deep underground under conditions of extreme pressure and temperature. Due to these conditions diamonds are the more stable of the two forms of carbon. Over a complete period of millions of years, those carbonaceous deposits slowly start to crystallise into single-crystal diamonds. There are mainly four types of diamonds :

1. Type Ia diamond – Most natural diamonds are called this type, which consists of up to 0.3% nitrogen.
2. Type Ib diamond – This type is particularly rare (~0.1%) in nature, but almost all synthetic (industrial) diamonds are of this type. The nitrogen concentration is up to 500 ppm.
3. Type IIa diamond – Also quite rare in nature, these diamonds contain so little nitrogen that they can’t be easily detected by the usual IR or UV absorption measurements.
4. Type IIb diamond – These types of diamonds are extremely rare in nature. These have such a low concentration of nitrogen.

Graphite

Graphite is another form of allotropes of carbon. In the formation of graphite, the atoms are arranged in various layers. This layering of atoms in the formation of graphite provides graphite with many of its properties. 

The formation of graphite is either natural or maybe created synthetically. The graphites that are naturally occurring are formed through a combination of igneous and metamorphic physical processes, these naturally occurring graphites are mined in several different countries, including China, Madagascar, Brazil, and Canada.

Likewise, synthetic graphite is formed by heating numerous kinds of carbon-containing substances like petrochemicals, pitch, coal, or acetylene. When these substances are super-heated to temperatures higher than 4000°C the carbon atoms start to rearrange themselves into layers to form graphite. Synthetic graphite is recognized to be purer than naturally occurring graphite. 

Naturally occurring graphites are found in many different countries across the globe,(the result of metamorphic or igneous processes) due to the effects of extreme heating and pressure on the carbon that leads to the result of volcanic or tectonic activity  Countries where graphite deposits are mainly found and mined are Brazil, China, Sri Lanka, Turkey, India, Canada, Madagascar, and North Korea.

Fullerenes

A fullerene is also an allotrope of carbon, a fullerenes molecule consisting of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds to form a closed or partially closed bond. With the help of fused rings of five to seven atoms. The fullerenes molecule tends to be a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, tube, or various other shapes and sizes.

The closed mesh topology of fullerenes is denoted informally by their empirical formula Cn, mainly written as Cn, in this formula, n is the number of carbon atoms present. However, there may be more than one isomer for some values of n. 

Conclusion

It would be impossible on earth to live without carbon atomic mass. This is possible due to carbon’s ability to form bonds readily with numerous other atoms, providing the flexibility to the particular form and function that biomolecules are applicable for, for example, DNA and RNA, these are essential for the important characteristics of life such as growth and replication. Carbon molecules are therefore very vital for all organisms, which carry out complex carbon cycles throughout the entire living systems.