What is a single carbon molecule?

1 Answer
Aug 30, 2017

If you mean, what molecule has one carbon, it could be anything...

  • #"CH"_4#
  • #"CH"_3"Cl"#
  • #"CH"_2"Cl"_2#
  • #"CHCl"_3#
  • #"CCl"_4#

or any variant that switches out the halogen for another one... There is no such thing as a molecule containing one carbon atom and nothing else around it.

#"C"_2#, however, has been observed before.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/

Based on the MO diagram, how do you show that the bond order is #2#? (How many bonding electrons are there?)