Compounds Flashcards, test questions and answers

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What is Compounds?

Compounds are substances made up of two or more elements chemically bonded together. Compounds are the building blocks for all matter and have unique chemical and physical properties that set them apart from the elements they are composed of. For example, water is a compound made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, but its properties such as boiling point, melting point, density, and surface tension are quite different from those of hydrogen and oxygen.Compounds can be classified in several ways. By composition, compounds can be divided into organic compounds (containing carbon) or inorganic compounds (not containing carbon). By structure, they can be divided into ionic compounds (formed when a metal combines with a nonmetal) or covalent compounds (formed when two nonmetals combine). By reactivity, compounds can be further divided into acids (which release hydrogen ions in solution) and bases (which accept hydrogen ions).The behavior of compounds is determined by their molecular structure. Compounds with similar structures often display similar properties; this is known as structural similarity. For example, methane (CH4), ethane(C2H6), propane(C3H8), and butane(C4H10) all have similar molecular structures consisting of single-bonded carbons surrounded by hydrogens; these four molecules also have similar boiling points because their molecular structure is so alike. On the other hand, other molecules with different structures will behave differently even though they may contain the same elements; for instance water(H2O) boils at 100° C while hydrogen sulfide(H2S) boils at -60° C despite being composed of the same atoms oxygen and sulfur just arranged differently. These principles form the basis for understanding how different materials interact with each other to create new substances called mixtures which contain multiple components that retain their individual characteristics even after mixing together; examples include air which contains nitrogen gas, oxygen gas, argon gas as well as water vapor and dust particles suspended in it all at once yet each component retains its distinct identity within this mixture.