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A molecule may be homonuclear, that is, it consists of atoms of one chemical element, e.g. two atoms in the oxygen molecule (O 2); or it may be heteronuclear, a chemical compound composed of more than one element, e.g. water (two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom; H 2 O).
Two or more atoms can combine to form molecules. Some elements are formed from molecules of identical atoms, e. g. atoms of hydrogen (H) form diatomic molecules (H 2). Chemical compounds are substances made of atoms of different elements; they can have molecular or non-molecular structure.
A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound.
In chemistry, homonuclear molecules, or elemental molecules, or homonuclear species, are molecules composed of only one element. Homonuclear molecules may consist of various numbers of atoms. The size of the molecule an element can form depends on the element's properties, and some elements form molecules of more than one size. The most ...
A similar claim can be made for hydrogen because most organic compounds contain hydrogen chemically bonded to carbon or another common element like oxygen or nitrogen. 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.
The element is similarly found in almost all biomolecules that are important to (or generated by) life. Oxygen reacts spontaneously with many organic compounds at or below room temperature in a process called autoxidation. [133] Most of the organic compounds that contain oxygen are not made by direct action of O 2.
It is the lightest element and, at standard conditions, is a gas of diatomic molecules with the formula H 2, sometimes called dihydrogen, [11] hydrogen gas, molecular hydrogen, or simply hydrogen. It is colorless, odorless, [12] non-toxic, and highly combustible.
Chemical formulas can be used to describe the relative amounts of elements present in a compound. For example, the chemical formula for water is H 2 O: this means that each molecule of water is constituted by 2 atoms of hydrogen (H) and 1 atom of oxygen (O).