Versatile nature of Carbon-Catenation

The chemical compounds can be mainly classified into two main categories. These are organic and inorganic.

More than 90 elements are involved in the formation of inorganic compounds

But the number of inorganic compounds formed are many times more than that.

The existence of such large number of organic compounds is because of the versatile nature of carbon which results in the self-linking of carbon atoms. This is known as catenation.

Catenation can be defined as the self linking property of an element due to which large number of its atoms can be linked with each other by covalent bonds.

Cause for catenation

The tetravalent nature of the carbon atom is the main reason for catenation. In order to obtain its octet, it combines with four carbon atoms by covalent bonds.

This means any number of carbon atoms can be linked by covalent bonds resulting in self linking also known as catenation.