Coal contains high amounts of carbon.
The etymology of carbon takes us to the French carbone , in turn derived from the Latin word carbo (which can be translated as carbon ). Carbon is a very abundant chemical element in nature that is key to life.
With symbol C , carbon is the pillar of organic chemistry . This is the name given to the scientific study of the properties and structure of compounds whose molecules contain this element. It is important to note that the substance that has carbon and that is present in a living being is classified as organic .
Carbon characteristics
Carbon is an element with atomic number 6 that is usually found in the form of graphite or diamond and appears in the atmosphere, in living organisms and as a mineral . It is a non-metal that is among the fifteen most abundant elements in the crust of our planet.
It is interesting to mention that, in all known life forms, carbon appears among its components. It can also be found in natural gas , diamond, oil , carbon dioxide and coal , for example.
Among the particularities of carbon, it is usually indicated that its allotropic forms give rise to very expensive materials such as diamond and, at the same time, very economical materials such as coal . Likewise, they include very hard substances ( diamond ) and other extremely soft ones ( graphite ).
The carbon footprint measures greenhouse gas emissions.
The isotopes
Isotopes are chemical elements that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. In other words, isotopes are atoms of the same element that, by having a different number of neutrons, exhibit another mass number.
Typically, chemical elements have two or more isotopes. In the case of carbon, it has two stable and natural isotopes: carbon-12 and carbon-13 .
Carbon-12 accounts for 98.89% of the carbon found in the Earth's crust. Its structure includes six protons, six neutrons and six electrons and is used as a standard to calculate the atomic mass of nuclides.
The mole , in this framework, is defined as the amount of substance that houses as many elemental entities as the number of atoms present in 0.012 kg of carbon-12. This convention was accepted by the International Committee of Weights and Measures in 1967 .
Carbon-14 , on the other hand, is a radioactive isotope whose discovery occurred in 1940 . With six protons and eight neutrons in its nucleus, it is used to give organic materials and objects of great antiquity based on the so-called law of exponential decay of radioactive isotopes .
The carbon footprint
An environmental indicator is a parameter used to evaluate the state of an ecosystem or other environmental system. Among these indicators, one of the most popular is the carbon footprint , which exposes the level of greenhouse gases emitted, either indirectly or directly, by a company, an activity or a person.
Greenhouse gases are those that cause the greenhouse effect by absorbing the sun's thermal radiation and radiating it in multiple directions, causing global warming . Among these gases is carbon dioxide , whose atmospheric concentration multiplied since the Industrial Revolution .