In pure form as diamonds or graphite. Made by burning organic compounds with insufficient oxygen. As carbon's major properties very widely depending upon its form, carbon's uses also very greatly. Other uses include pencils, diamonds, steel, controls nuclear reactions, tire colorant, plastics, paint pigments, lubricants and much more.
Carbon has many allotropes each having very different physical properties from the other.
Carbon compounds are named according to the number of carbons present in the basic chain, the presence of single, double or triple bonds, whether or not the carbon chain forms a cyclic structure and the elements or ions that substitute for hydrogens in the chain. So much in fact that there is an entire field of chemistry called organic chemistry that is devoted to these compounds. One could get a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and still feel that one had barely gotten their feet wet. Ionic Radius Ionization Potential Mass Average Melting Point Name Periodic Table Series Symbol Thermal Conductivity Year of Discovery Search the Web.