20 Examples of Compounds - encyclopedia

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Classification
Examples of chemical compounds

When speaking of compounds, allusion is generally made to chemical compounds, that is, at substances that are made up of two or more chemical elements that combine in a certain way and proportion.

The physico-chemical properties of the compounds are not the same as those of the chemical elements that make it up separately.

There are thousands of examples of chemical compounds around us, natural and synthetic, each with its own characteristics. From table salt or sugar with which we season what we eat every day, or soap and bleach that we use to clean, to the medicines we take to alleviate our pain or cure ourselves of infections are made up of different chemical compounds.

Classification

Since there are so many chemical compounds, it is common to try to arrange them in some way. In general, they are separated into two large groups: organic compounds and inorganic compounds:

Organic: They contain at least carbon and hydrogen in their molecule, among them are important substances such as hydrocarbons, classic fuels; proteins or fats.
Inorganic: They do not contain carbon as a central element, but instead combine other elements (such as nitrogen, sulfur, iron, oxygen or potassium), to form salts, oxides, hydroxidesand acids. Anyway cable clarify that there are also salts and organic acids.

Depending on the type of bond that occurs between the elements, you can have ionic or covalent compounds:

Ionic compounds: They are held together with the cation and anion by the attraction caused by the difference in charges.
Covalent compounds: Its electrons are shared.

Chemical compounds are normally represented by their structural formula or semi-developed. They are also very helpful in understanding how chemical compounds are formed. three-dimensional models, especially if they are very complex molecules with specific folds, such as proteins.

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