GED Biology Introduction: CARBON

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Carbon is Important to Life

In its metabolism of food and respiration, an animal consumes glucose (C₆H₁₂O₆), which combines with oxygen (O₂) to produce carbon dioxide (CO₂), water (H₂O), and energy, which is given off as heat. The animal has no need for the carbon dioxide and releases it into the atmosphere. A plant, on the other hand, uses the opposite reaction of an animal through photosynthesis. It intakes carbon dioxide, water, and energy from sunlight to make its own glucose and oxygen gas. The glucose is used for chemical energy, which the plant metabolizes in a similar way to an animal. The plant then emits the remaining oxygen into the environment.

Cells are made of many complex molecules called macromolecules, which include proteins, nucleic acids (RNA and DNA), carbohydrates, and lipids. The macromolecules are a subset of organic molecules (any carbon-containing liquid, solid, or gas) that are especially important for life. The fundamental component for all of these macromolecules is carbon. The carbon atom has unique properties that allow it to form covalent bonds to as many as four different atoms, making this versatile element ideal to serve as the basic structural component, or "backbone," of the macromolecules.

Source: Boundless. “The Chemical Basis for Life.” Boundless Biology. Boundless, 08 Jan. 2016. Retrieved 24 Mar. 2016 from https://www.boundless.com/biology/textbooks/boundless-biology-textbook/the-chemical-foundation-of-life-2/carbon-52/the-chemical-basis-for-life-288-11421/


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Carbon has the ability to form very long chains of interconnecting C-C bonds. This property is called catenation. Carbon-carbon bonds are strong, and stable. This property allows carbon to form an almost infinite number of compounds; in fact, there are more known carbon-containing compounds than all the compounds of the other chemical elements combined except those of hydrogen (because almost all organic compounds contain hydrogen as well).

The simplest form of an organic molecule is the hydrocarbon—a large family of organic molecules that are composed of hydrogen atoms bonded to a chain of carbon atoms. Chain length, side chains and functional groups all affect the properties of organic molecules.

Carbon occurs in all known organic life and is the basis of organic chemistry. When united with hydrogen, it forms various hydrocarbons which are important to industry asrefrigerants, lubricants, solvents, as chemical feedstock for the manufacture of plastics and petrochemicals and as fossil fuels.

When combined with oxygen and hydrogen, carbon can form many groups of important biological compounds includingsugars, lignans, chitins, alcohols, fats, and aromatic esters, carotenoids and terpenes. With nitrogen it forms alkaloids, and with the addition of sulfur also it forms antibiotics, amino acids, and rubber products. With the addition of phosphorus to these other elements, it forms DNA and RNA, the chemical-code carriers of life, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the most important energy-transfer molecule in all living cells.