NCERT Book Class 10 Science Chapter 4 Carbon and its Compounds

CHAPTER 4
Carbon and its
Compounds

I n the last Chapter, we came to know many compounds of importance
to us. In this Chapter we will study about some more interesting
compounds and their properties. Also, we shall be learning about carbon,
an element which is of immense significance to us in both its elemental
form and in the combined form.

Activity 4.1 Things made Things made Others
of metal of glass/clay
n Make a list of ten things you have used
or consumed since the morning.
n Compile this list with the lists made by
your classmates and then sort the items
into the adjacent Table.
n If there are items which are made up of
more than one material, put them into
both the relevant columns of the table.

Look at the items that come in the last column of the above table
filled by you – your teacher will be able to tell you that most of them are
made up of compounds of carbon. Can you think of a method to test
this? What would be the product if a compound containing carbon is
burnt? Do you know of any test to confirm this?
Food, clothes, medicines, books, or many of the things that you listed
are all based on this versatile element carbon. In addition, all living
structures are carbon based. The amount of carbon present in the earth’s
crust and in the atmosphere is quite meagre. The earth’s crust has only
0.02% carbon in the form of minerals (like carbonates, hydrogen-
carbonates, coal and petroleum) and the atmosphere has 0.03% of carbon
dioxide. In spite of this small amount of carbon available in nature, the
importance of carbon seems to be immense. In this Chapter, we will know
about the properties of carbon which make carbon so important to us.

4.1 BONDING IN CARBON – THE COVALENT BOND
In the previous Chapter, we have studied the properties of ionic
compounds. We saw that ionic compounds have high melting and boiling
points and conduct electricity in solution or in the molten state. We also

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