Chemical compound

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many

identical molecules (or molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one element held
together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a
compound.

There are four types of compounds, depending on how the constituent atoms are held
together:

• molecules held together by covalent bonds

• ionic compounds held together by ionic bonds
• intermetallic compounds held together by metallic bonds
• certain complexes held together by coordinate covalent bonds.
A chemical formula specifies the number of atoms of each element in a compound
molecule, using the standard abbreviations for the chemical elements and
numerical subscripts. For example, a water molecule has formula H2O indicating
two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Many chemical compounds have a
unique CAS number identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service. Globally, more
than 350,000 chemical compounds (including mixtures of chemicals) have been registered
for production and use.[1]
J
Ju
um
m
p
p
t
to
o
n
sa
ev
ai
rg
ca
ht
i
o
n