Wikibooks: General Chemistry/Chemistries of Various Elements/Group 14

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Carbonic acid
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/General_Chemistry/Chemistries_of_Various_Elements/Group_14

msg GeneralChemTOC prev=Chemistries of Various Elements/Group 13 next=Chemistries of Various Elements/Group 15 = The Carbon Family = Group 14 (IVA) consists of and . Carbon is a non metal silicon and germanium are metalloids and tin and lead are metals. With 4 valence shell electrons elements of the carbon family tend to form covalent compounds. With increasing mass and atomic radius these elements become increasingly metallic and have lower melting and boiling points. Group 14 elements form gaseous hydrogen compounds with difficulty. These are either unstable or combustible. All but lead form oxides sulfides and halides in the +4 oxidation state. The +4 oxidation state predominates in carbon silicon and germanium the +2 and +4 oxidation states both appear in tin and the +2 oxidation state prevails in lead. Halides in the +4 state form for all of these elements and they are covalent. Carbon compounds are much more [[covalent]] than analogous compounds of silicon germanium tin or lead. Even more significantly carbon forms double and even triple bonds with itself or other elements forming compounds that the heavier elements of this group cannot form like acetylene (C 2 H 2 ). Silicon and the heavier elements of this group can form only single bonds. Thus carbon dioxide CO 2 is a gas at normal temperatures because the double bonds between carbon and oxygen create single molecules but silicon dioxide SiO 2 forms a hard rock known as quartz because it is a [[covalent network solid]]. Each silicon atom bonds to four different oxygen atoms with single bonds and each oxygen atom bonds with two silicon atoms. Similar properties apply to the oxides of germanium tin and lead. Carbon dioxide dissolves in water to form carbonic acid a weak acid that reacts with bases to form carbonates oxides of the other elements of this group are practically nonreactive in water. Info Because of its unparalleled importance in chemistry carbon is the main focus of our study of the Group 14 elements. = Carbon = Carbon is a very important ...