How Many Electrons Does Carbon Have
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How many of electrons does carbon have?

That means a carbon atom has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons.

Does carbon have 8 electrons?

Electrons In The Shells – Take a look at the picture below. Each of those colored balls is an, In an atom, the electrons spin around the center, also called the, The electrons like to be in separate shells/orbitals, Shell number one can only hold 2 electrons, shell two can hold 8, and for the first eighteen elements shell three can hold a maximum of eight electrons.

  • As you learn about elements with more than eighteen electrons you will find that shell three can hold more than eight.
  • Once one shell is full, the next electron that is added has to move to the next shell. So.
  • For the element of CARBON, you already know that the atomic number tells you the number of electrons.

That means there are 6 electrons in a carbon atom. Looking at the picture, you can see there are two electrons in shell one and four electrons in shell two. How Many Electrons Does Carbon Have How Many Electrons Does Carbon Have

This is a carbon dioxide molecule. When you breathe out, you usually breathe out carbon dioxide. With the formula CO 2 that means there are two oxygen (O) atoms and one carbon (C) atom. If you look closely at the dot structure, you’ll see that they share four electrons each. If a bond shares two electrons that means it is a single bond. If a bond is made up of four electrons it is a double bond. That means that the carbon atom has two double bonds, one with each oxygen atom.
Here’s something new! We have three different elements here, carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and chlorine (Cl). That’s not special, but the way they combine is! Look at the carbon and the nitrogen, they are sharing six electrons! When two atoms share two electrons, that’s a single bond. If they share four it’s a double bond. Well these two are sharing six, that’s a triple bond. It’s extremely strong and powerful. It would take a lot of work to separate the C and the N ! One more thing! Because the bond between carbon and nitrogen is so strong, scientists call them ” cyanogen ” instead of carbon-nitrogen. Scientists know that cyanogen is always CN,
Two beryllium (Be) atoms are able to bond with one carbon (C) atom to create Be 2 C, The beryllium atoms let the carbon use their electrons so that the carbon is ‘happy’. Each beryllium gives up both of its two extra electrons to the carbon. Take a look and see how all of the electrons are shared.

Chem4Kids.com: Carbon: Orbital and Bonding Info

Does carbon have 4 electrons?

In total, carbon has 6 protons and 6 electrons.

Does carbon-14 have 6 electrons?

In a carbon-14 atom, there are a total of six electrons, six protons, and eight neutrons.

Does carbon only need 4 electrons?

A: Carbon needs four more valence electrons, or a total of eight valence electrons, to fill its outer energy level. A full outer energy level is the most stable arrangement of electrons.

Does carbon have 14 electrons?

Fundamental properties of atoms including atomic number and atomic mass. The atomic number is the number of protons in an atom, and isotopes have the same atomic number but differ in the number of neutrons. Radioactivity pops up fairly often in the news.

For instance, you might have read about it in discussions of nuclear energy, the Fukushima reactor tragedy, or the development of nuclear weapons. It also shows up in popular culture: many superheroes’ origin stories involve radiation exposure, for instance—or, in the case of Spider-Man, a bite from a radioactive spider.

But what exactly does it mean for something to be radioactive? Radioactivity is actually a property of an atom. Radioactive atoms have unstable nuclei, and they will eventually release subatomic particles to become more stable, giving off energy—radiation—in the process.

  1. Often, elements come in both radioactive and nonradioactive versions that differ in the number of neutrons they contain.
  2. These different versions of elements are called isotopes, and small quantities of radioactive isotopes often occur in nature.
  3. For instance, a small amount of carbon exists in the atmosphere as radioactive carbon-14, and the amount of carbon-14 found in fossils allows paleontologists to determine their age.

In this article, we’ll look in more detail at the subatomic particles that different atoms contain as well as what makes an isotope radioactive. Atoms of each element contain a characteristic number of protons. In fact, the number of protons determines what atom we are looking at (e.g., all atoms with six protons are carbon atoms); the number of protons in an atom is called the atomic number,

  • In contrast, the number of neutrons for a given element can vary.
  • Forms of the same atom that differ only in their number of neutrons are called isotopes,
  • Together, the number of protons and the number of neutrons determine an element’s mass number : mass number = protons + neutrons.
  • If you want to calculate how many neutrons an atom has, you can simply subtract the number of protons, or atomic number, from the mass number.

A property closely related to an atom’s mass number is its atomic mass, The atomic mass of a single atom is simply its total mass and is typically expressed in atomic mass units or amu. By definition, an atom of carbon with six neutrons, carbon-12, has an atomic mass of 12 amu.

Other atoms don’t generally have round-number atomic masses for reasons that are a little beyond the scope of this article. In general, though, an atom’s atomic mass will be very close to its mass number, but will have some deviation in the decimal places. Since an element’s isotopes have different atomic masses, scientists may also determine the relative atomic mass —sometimes called the atomic weight —for an element.

The relative atomic mass is an average of the atomic masses of all the different isotopes in a sample, with each isotope’s contribution to the average determined by how big a fraction of the sample it makes up. The relative atomic masses given in periodic table entries—like the one for hydrogen, below—are calculated for all the naturally occurring isotopes of each element, weighted by the abundance of those isotopes on earth.

Extraterrestrial objects, like asteroids or meteors, might have very different isotope abundances. As mentioned above, isotopes are different forms of an element that have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. Many elements—such as carbon, potassium, and uranium—have multiple naturally occurring isotopes.

A neutral atom of Carbon-12 contains six protons, six neutrons, and six electrons; therefore, it has a mass number of 12 (six protons plus six neutrons). Neutral carbon-14 contains six protons, eight neutrons, and six electrons; its mass number is 14 (six protons plus eight neutrons).

These two alternate forms of carbon are isotopes. Some isotopes are stable, but others can emit, or kick out, subatomic particles to reach a more stable, lower-energy, configuration. Such isotopes are called radioisotopes, and the process in which they release particles and energy is known as decay,

Radioactive decay can cause a change in the number of protons in the nucleus; when this happens, the identity of the atom changes (e.g., carbon-14 decaying to nitrogen-14). Radioactive decay is a random but exponential process, and an isotope’s half-life is the period over which half of the material will decay to a different, relatively stable product.

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The ratio of the original isotope to its decay product and to stable isotopes changes in a predictable way; this predictability allows the relative abundance of the isotope to be used as a clock that measures the time from the incorporation of the isotope (e.g., into a fossil) to the present. For example, carbon is normally present in the atmosphere in the form of gases like carbon dioxide, and it exists in three isotopic forms: carbon-12 and carbon-13, which are stable, and carbon-14, which is radioactive.

These forms of carbon are found in the atmosphere in relatively constant proportions, with carbon-12 as the major form at about 99%, carbon-13 as a minor form at about 1%, and carbon-14 present only in tiny amounts start superscript, 1, end superscript,

As plants pull carbon dioxide from the air to make sugars, the relative amount of carbon-14 in their tissues will be equal to the concentration of carbon-14 in the atmosphere. As animals eat the plants, or eat other animals that ate plants, the concentrations of carbon-14 in their bodies will also match the atmospheric concentration.

When an organism dies, it stops taking in carbon-14, so the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 in its remains, such as fossilized bones, will decline as carbon-14 decays gradually to nitrogen-14 squared, After a half-life of approximately 5,730 years, half of the carbon-14 that was initially present will have been converted to nitrogen-14.

This property can be used to date formerly living objects such as old bones or wood. By comparing the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 concentrations in an object to the same ratio in the atmosphere, equivalent to the starting concentration for the object, the fraction of the isotope that has not yet decayed can be determined.

On the basis of this fraction, the age of the material can be calculated with accuracy if it is not much older than about 50,000 years. Other elements have isotopes with different half lives, and can thus be used to measure age on different timescales.

What has 8 electrons?

Oxygen atom has 8 electrons, 8 protons and 8 neutrons.

Does carbon have 10 electrons?

How many valence electrons are there in Carbon? Answer Verified Hint: Valence electrons are the total numbers of electrons present in the outermost shell of an atom (i.e. in outermost orbital). The valence electrons for a neutral atom is always definite, it cannot be varied in any condition for a particular atom and may not be equal to its valency.Most of the time valency varies/changes due to change in oxidation and reduction states.

Complete answer: Note:

First, we need to know that carbon has an atomic number of 6. Or else we can find the atomic number through a periodic table. As its atomic number is 6 means it has 6 protons and for neutral carbon the number of protons is always equal to the number of electrons.

Thus carbon has 6 electrons.Now we know the number of electrons we can find the electronic configuration,Electronic configuration is the arrangement of electrons on the orbitals. The carbon atom has 6 electrons. The electrons will be placed in different orbitals according to the energy level: \\].Now, carbon electron configuration $C(6) = 1,2,2 $.After finding the electronic configuration it’s time to determine the valence shell of Carbon.As we know, the valence shell of an atom can be found from the highest number of principal quantum shell of an atom are called valence electrons, and there are total of four electrons present in valence shell of carbon\.

Thus, carbon has four valence electrons.Carbon has both $ + 4$ and $ – 4$. If it loses three electrons to reach a stable state its valency will be $ + 4$. But if it gains five electrons to reach a stable state its valency will be $ – 4$. For example in $C $, the oxidation state of carbon is $ + 4$ while in $C $, the oxidation state is $ – 4$.

Do all atoms have 8 electrons?

While most atoms obey the duet and octet rules, there are some exceptions. For example, elements such as boron or beryllium often form compounds in which the central atom is surrounded by fewer than eight electrons (e.g., BF₃ or BeH₂).

Does carbon have +4 or 4?

The valency of carbon is 4 and valency of oxygen is 2.

Does carbon-12 have 6?

A family of people often consists of related but not identical individuals. Elements have families as well, known as isotopes. Isotopes are members of a family of an element that all have the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons, The number of protons in a nucleus determines the element’s atomic number on the Periodic Table.

  • For example, carbon has six protons and is atomic number 6.
  • Carbon occurs naturally in three isotopes: carbon 12, which has 6 neutrons (plus 6 protons equals 12), carbon 13, which has 7 neutrons, and carbon 14, which has 8 neutrons.
  • Every element has its own number of isotopes.
  • The addition of even one neutron can dramatically change an isotope’s properties.

Carbon-12 is stable, meaning it never undergoes radioactive decay, Carbon-14 is unstable and undergoes radioactive decay with a half-life of about 5,730 years (meaning that half of the material will be gone after 5,730 years). This decay means the amount of carbon-14 in an object serves as a clock, showing the object’s age in a process called “carbon dating.” Isotopes have unique properties, and these properties make them useful in diagnostics and treatment applications.

Does carbon have 4 or 6 valence electrons?

Atomic carbon has six electrons: two inner shell (core) electrons in the 1 s orbital, and four valence (outer most shell) electrons in the 2 s and 2 p orbitals, Electron Configuration for Bonded Carbon When bonded with a full octet (such as in methane ) carbon has eight valence electrons (two per covalent bond ). Each hydrogen atom has two valence electrons.

Does carbon-12 have 6 electrons?

Carbon-12 is composed of 6 protons, 6 neutrons, and 6 electrons.

Why is carbon not 4?

Home QnA Home Why there is no 4 bond between carbon

Answers (2) Hi, There is no 4 bond formed between carbon because of the carbon electron orbitals. Since it has 4 valence electrons, it needs 4 more to electrons to fill its outer energy level. It does so by forming covalent bonds with another element, in order to complete its Octet rule.

Comments (0) Question cannot be greater than 3000 characters 0 / 3000 As per Lewis theory studied in the Nature of Chemical Bonds as per that rule, Carbon can easily form a 4 bond ie tetrabond with other carbon atoms as its valency iss also 4. This satisifies the Octet rule. But the reason it doesn’t is defined as you go deep into the chemistry.

Things will get more clear to you as you read more and more. Carbon cannot form quadraple bond is based on the concept of hybridization. It does not possess enough atomic orbitals for the same. When in sp hybridisation, it leaves 2 p orbitals over and when it is in sp2 hybridization one p orbital is left.

Why can’t carbon take 4 electrons?

Carbon cannot form C4+ because if it loses 4 electrons, it would require a large amount of energy to remove 4 electrons leaving behind a carbon cation with six protons in its nucleus holding on to just 2 electrons.

Why carbon Cannot form 4?

For making four bonds, eight electrons would have to be squeezed in and such a system is highly unstable energetically. So, C-C quadruple bonds do not exist.

Why is carbon-14?

We call it carbon-14 because the total number of protons and neutrons in the nucleus, also known as the mass number, adds up to 14 (6+8=14).

Why does carbon-14 have 6 electrons?

Carbon-12 and carbon-14 are two isotopes of the element carbon, The difference between carbon-12 and carbon-14 is the number of neutrons in each of their atoms. This is how this works. The number given after the atom name indicates the number of protons plus neutrons in an atom or ion.

  1. Atoms of both isotopes of carbon contain 6 protons.
  2. Atoms of carbon-12 have 6 neutrons, while atoms of carbon-14 contain 8 neutrons.
  3. A neutral atom would have the same number of protons and electrons, so a neutral atom of carbon-12 or carbon-14 would have 6 electrons.
  4. Although neutrons do not carry an electrical charge, they have a mass comparable to that of protons, so different isotopes have different atomic weight.
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Carbon-12 is lighter than carbon-14.

Is carbon-14 in everything?

‘Perhaps the most important isotope’: how carbon-14 revolutionised science M artin Kamen had worked for three days and three nights without sleep. The US chemist was finishing off a project in which he and a colleague, Sam Ruben, had bombarded a piece of graphite with subatomic particles.

The aim of their work was to create new forms of carbon, ones that might have practical uses. Exhausted, Kamen staggered out of his laboratory at Berkeley in California, having finished off the project in the early hours of 27 February 1940. He desperately needed a break. Rumpled, red eyed and with a three-day growth of beard, he looked a mess.

And that was unfortunate. Berkeley police were then searching for an escaped convict who had just committed several murders. So when they saw the unkempt Kamen they promptly picked him up, bundled him into the back of their patrol car and interrogated him as a suspected killer.

  1. Thus one of most revolutionary pieces of research undertaken in the past century was nearly terminated at birth when one of its lead scientists was accused of murder.
  2. It was only when witnesses made it clear that Kamen was not the man the police were after that he was released and allowed to go back to the University of California Radiation Laboratory to look at the lump of graphite that he and Ruben had been irradiating.

It did not take the pair long to realise they had produced a substance with remarkable properties, one that has since transformed a host of different scientific fields and continues to help scientists make major discoveries. By irradiating graphite, they had created carbon-14. Martin Kamen in 1939. Photograph: US National Archives Public Domain Archive “That gloomy night and morning of 27 February 1940 began a revolution in physiology, biochemistry, archaeology, geology, biomedicine, oceanography, palaeoclimatology and anthropology as well as nuclear chemistry,” says environment researcher John Marra, author of the newly published,

  • Carbon-14, perhaps the most important isotope to life on Earth, was ‘born’.” Carbon-14 has six protons and eight neutrons in its nucleus.
  • By contrast, most of the carbon in our bodies and in the outside world, known as carbon-12, has six protons and six neutrons.
  • Crucially, those two extra neutrons make the nucleus of a carbon-14 atom unstable so that it decays radioactively into an atom of nitrogen.

More importantly, these decays are relatively infrequent so that it is possible to measure changes in a carbon sample over tens of thousands of years. (See box below.) Q&A Show The nucleus of an element is made up of subatomic particles: protons and neutrons.

The number of protons in the nucleus of an element defines its chemical behaviour. But atoms of the same element can possess different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. These different forms are known as isotopes. Carbon has three main isotopes: carbon-12, carbon-13 and carbon-14. The first two are stable but the last decays radioactively.

In any sample, carbon-14 atoms will take around 5,730 years to lose half their number. Thus carbon-14 is said to have a half-life of 5,730 years. Robin McKie Thank you for your feedback. “Carbon is what we are made of,” says Marra, who is professor of earth and environmental sciences at Brooklyn College, New York.

“Carbon is life. It is fundamental also to how we live, how the Earth is habitable – pretty much everything. And since the discovery of a long-lived radioisotope of carbon, we have an amazing tool to delve into almost every aspect of existence on Earth – and perhaps the universe.” As Marra reveals in this remarkable history of carbon-14, scientists quickly realised the isotope must affect living beings today.

Cosmic rays batter the upper atmosphere and send cascades of neutrons through the air, they calculated. These neutrons strike atoms of nitrogen, the main component of Earth’s atmosphere, and transform some into atoms of carbon-14. In turn, these atoms combine with oxygen to create radioactive carbon dioxide that is absorbed by plants, which are then eaten by animals.

Every living thing on Earth thus becomes radioactive, albeit slightly,” says Marra. And it dawned on Willard Libby of Chicago University that the radioactivity generated by carbon-14 could be exploited to tremendous advantage. A chemist who had worked on the Manhattan Project to build the first atom bomb, Libby realised that when an organism dies, it will stop absorbing carbon, including carbon-14, and its existing store of the latter will slowly decay.

So, by measuring the radioactivity of a sample taken from the organism, its carbon-14 content could be estimated and the date of its time of death could be measured. The sciences of archaeology and palaeontology were about to be revolutionised. A major problem had to be overcome, however.

Carbon-14 exists in only very low levels in the tissue of recently deceased animals and plants: about one in a trillion of their carbon atoms are carbon-14. By contrast, natural background radiation – from thorium and uranium in rocks and other sources – is much, much higher. How could researchers separate carbon-14’s weak signal from this overwhelming background noise? We have gained substantial understanding of the natural world because of carbon-14 John Marra Libby solved the problem by carefully shielding his detectors and developing ways to tune out any radiation that made it through to the walls of his device.

Then he turned to the gas methane, which contains carbon, to provide final validation of his technique, comparing samples from two very different sources. One sample was extracted from natural gas, a fossil fuel whose carbon-14 should have decayed long ago.

The second came from the city of Baltimore sewerage system and was extracted from human excrement. It should be rich in carbon-14, having just been produced by humans, Libby reasoned. And that is exactly what he found. Ancient methane had no carbon-14. By contrast, methane newly excreted by humans was relatively rich in the isotope.

As Marra says: “Human waste from sewer lines sent science onward.” Libby then provided final proof of his dating technology by measuring the radioactivity – and, by inference, the age – of a series of organic samples of known antiquity: wood from the Egyptian funeral ship of Sesostris III, linen that had wrapped a Dead Sea scroll and a bread roll that had been “cooked” in the volcanic eruption that buried Pompeii.

His results perfectly matched the known dates of the items he had scanned. It was a brilliant undertaking for which Libby was awarded the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1960, though he was lucky in one sense. Libby assumed that the rate of carbon-14 production in the atmosphere had been constant for the past few tens of thousands of years.

In fact, it has varied fairly widely, thanks to changes in sunspot activity, atmospheric nuclear bomb tests and rising emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. These have to be taken carefully into account when estimating ages, scientists now realise, though the underlying basis of radiocarbon dating remains sound. Willard Libby is given the Nobel prize in chemistry, December 1960. Photograph: Bettmann Archive More recently, radiocarbon dating has changed from simply measuring the radioactivity emitted by carbon-14 nuclei to directly counting numbers of atoms of the isotope in a sample.

  • This is done using a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which has allowed scientists to date bones, artefacts and other carbon-based items from the tiniest sample.
  • This was a huge advance,” says Marra.
  • Instead of grams of material to analyse, AMS requires only milligrams.” In this way, the developers of AMS triggered a dating revolution that began in the 60s and has since “ushered in a ‘’ revolution”, says Marra.
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One example involving the use of carbon-14 resulted in the overturning of the idea that past western European cultures had depended on practices and ideas that began in the Middle East and slowly disseminated westwards with the spread of farming. Radiocarbon dating revealed a very different picture and showed that the neolithic cultures of Britain, France and central Europe must have evolved independently.

Later, the technique was used by laboratories in Britain, Switzerland and the United States to date the flax used to weave the Turin shroud. This cloth, marked with the negative image of a bearded man, was believed by some to be the burial shroud in which Jesus was wrapped after crucifixion. Using only a few fragments of cloth, scientists dated it to 1260-1390AD.

Over the years, uses of carbon-14 have spread well beyond dating ancient artefacts. Drugs can be labelled with carbon-14 and followed as they pass through the body in order to test their safety and efficacy. Other researchers have used the isotope to trace the way in which plants convert carbon dioxide into sugar, revealing the intricate processes underpinning photosynthesis.

  • In addition, carbon-14 has been exploited to study plankton and other forms of sea life, revealing how the waters of the oceans circulate in a great interconnected web of currents that sweep round the planet.
  • The carbon content of a fish will register what it has been eating, which in turn will reflect the chemistry of the surrounding water, which will be influenced by how the ocean has mixed,” says Marra.

For good measure, carbon-14 is now playing a major role in uncovering how climates have changed on Earth over tens of thousands of years, work of immense importance as scientists struggle to understand how rising carbon emissions are now triggering dangerous global heating.

  • We have gained substantial understanding about the natural world over the past 60 to 70 years, in no small part because of carbon-14,” says Marra.
  • Certainly, it is hard to exaggerate the impact it has had on science.
  • Yet its discoverers, Kamen and Ruben, both fared badly in the wake of their breakthrough.

Kamen, who came from a family of Lithuanian and Belarusian émigrés, aroused the suspicion of US security forces after the US entered the second world war and he was observed dining with Soviet consular officials. He was summarily sacked from his laboratory and his passport was impounded.

  • Amen was later brought before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1948, accused of passing secrets to the Soviets.
  • It was not until the end of the century that his reputation was rehabilitated.
  • Ruben had even worse luck.
  • After Pearl Harbor, he began research on the physiological effects of phosgene gas, a chemical weapon.

During one test, an ampoule of the gas broke and he was sprayed with phosgene. He died a few hours later. If the story of carbon-14 is one of the remarkable examples of scientific progress in the 20th century, the sad fates of two of its main players is a sign of the turbulent times in which they lived.

Does carbon only need 6 electrons?

The octet rule and Lewis diagrams – The octet rule is very useful in predicting the structure of a molecule. It helps us draw Lewis diagrams, which show the arrangement of atoms and electrons in a molecule. To draw a Lewis diagram, we need to follow a few steps.

  • First, we count the total number of valence electrons in the molecule.
  • Next, we draw the rough position of the atoms and join them using single covalent bonds.
  • Then, we add electrons to the outer atoms until they have full outer shells.
  • After that, we count how many electrons we have left and add them to the central atom.

Finally, we use double covalent bonds to form complete outer shells on all the atoms. Let’s take carbon dioxide (CO2) as an example. Carbon has four valence electrons, and each oxygen has six valence electrons, so the total number of valence electrons in CO2 is 16. How Many Electrons Does Carbon Have Carbon dioxide ‍ Next, we use our first application of the octet rule. Each atom wants to have eight valence electrons, giving it a full outer shell. We start by looking at the outer atoms. In this case, these are the two oxygen atoms. Both currently only have two valence electrons from the covalent bond that they share with carbon.

To get to a full outer shell, each oxygen needs to gain six more electrons. Let’s draw them in. If we add up the total number of valence electrons we’ve added to the molecule, we find 2(2) = 4 electrons from the two single bonds, and 6(2) = 12 electrons from the lone pairs.12 + 4 = 16, which you might remember is the number of valence electrons that carbon dioxide is allowed to have.

We can’t add anymore electrons. However, our Lewis structure isn’t complete. This is where the octet rule comes in again. The central carbon atom currently only has four electrons in its outer shell; to achieve a full outer shell and satisfy the octet rule, it needs eight. Carbon dioxide ‍ All atoms now satisfy the octet rule. Our structure is complete. Octet rule limitations and exceptions Although the octet rule is a great model, it doesn’t always hold up. In fact, it has some notable exceptions.

Does carbon have 10 electrons?

How many valence electrons are there in Carbon? Answer Verified Hint: Valence electrons are the total numbers of electrons present in the outermost shell of an atom (i.e. in outermost orbital). The valence electrons for a neutral atom is always definite, it cannot be varied in any condition for a particular atom and may not be equal to its valency.Most of the time valency varies/changes due to change in oxidation and reduction states.

Complete answer: Note:

First, we need to know that carbon has an atomic number of 6. Or else we can find the atomic number through a periodic table. As its atomic number is 6 means it has 6 protons and for neutral carbon the number of protons is always equal to the number of electrons.

Thus carbon has 6 electrons.Now we know the number of electrons we can find the electronic configuration,Electronic configuration is the arrangement of electrons on the orbitals. The carbon atom has 6 electrons. The electrons will be placed in different orbitals according to the energy level: \\].Now, carbon electron configuration $C(6) = 1,2,2 $.After finding the electronic configuration it’s time to determine the valence shell of Carbon.As we know, the valence shell of an atom can be found from the highest number of principal quantum shell of an atom are called valence electrons, and there are total of four electrons present in valence shell of carbon\.

Thus, carbon has four valence electrons.Carbon has both $ + 4$ and $ – 4$. If it loses three electrons to reach a stable state its valency will be $ + 4$. But if it gains five electrons to reach a stable state its valency will be $ – 4$. For example in $C $, the oxidation state of carbon is $ + 4$ while in $C $, the oxidation state is $ – 4$.

Why does carbon have 8 electrons?

So the reason nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon always need to have eight electrons is because they want to fill their p orbital. The p orbital can hold six electrons and they already have 2 electrons from their filled s orbital. These elements are in the 2p orbital so they cannot have more than eight.

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