Top 4 Reasons of Large Number Of Organic Compounds

Reasons of Large Number Of Organic Compounds

Presently, Organic Compounds are more than five million in number. Reasons of Large Number of Organic Compounds can be classified in following four ways:

1. Catenation =>

   Carbon has a remarkable property of combining with other carbon atoms to form long straight or branched chains and rings of different shapes and sizes. This property of self-linking of atoms of an element through covalent bonds to form long straight or branched chains and rings of different sizes is called Catenation.
   Carbon Shows maximum catenation in periodic table. This is due to its small Atomic Size, Electronic Configuration, and High strength of Carbon-Carbon bond.



2. Electronegativity =>

   The Electronegativity of carbon(2.5) is neither very high nor very low. It is close to a number of other elements such as Hydrogen(2.1), Nitrogen(3.0), Phosphorus(2.1), Chlorine(3.0), Oxygen(3.5) etc. As such carbon forms strong caovalent bonds with these elements. This adds to the number of organic compounds.











3. Tendency To Form Multiple Bonds =>

   Because of its small size and presence of four elements in the valence shell, carbon has a strong tendency to form multiple bonds with carbon, oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen etc. This further increases the number of organic compounds.



4. Isomerism =>

   Many Organic compounds show the phenomenon of isomerism by virtue of which a single molecualar formula represents two or more different compounds. This also helps in increasing the number of organic compounds.


In the next section, we are going to discuss on Classification of Organic Compounds into different categories.