Name: Carbon – from Latin “carbo” (charcoal)
Number of seats: 6
Chemical symbol: C
It’s hard to think of an element that comes in more different versions than carbon. Graphite, coal and diamonds consist of pure carbon.
The German town of Nördlingen is built of rocks containing millions of diamonds that were formed by a meteorite impact 15 million years ago.
The force of the collision was great enough to transform graphite in the earth into diamond. Geologists believe that the collision site contains at least 72,000 tons of diamonds.
Unfortunately, none of them are larger than 0.2 mm in diameter, so it is not possible to profit from their processing.
Read more about the periodic table
What is carbon used for?
Carbon is involved in a myriad of organic and inorganic compounds.
Among other things, carbon has the property that it can bond with other carbon atoms and form complex molecules that form long chains and rings in countless variations. Diamonds, coal and graphite are examples of carbon compounds with very different properties.
Carbon is also an important element in nano-technology, and we can mention carbon nanotubes, but it is an extremely strong chemical compound that can conduct electricity.
Carbon is the building block of life
But carbon is often associated with other substances such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur, and is therefore a necessary element in numerous chemical compounds that we associate with life: DNA, proteins and carbohydrates.
Video: The carbon cycle and climate
Carbon is found almost everywhere in nature: in the oceans, the atmosphere and in the ground, where it plays a role as carbon dioxide in the carbon cycle.
The balance in the carbon cycle plays an important role in the state of the Earth’s climate – and thus has a major impact on climate change.
You can see more about it in this video:
