Oxygen can form many types of compounds with carbon. The possibilities using only carbon and hydrogen are somewhat limited, but things quickly get a lot more complex and interesting with oxygen included.

Oxygen has two bonds in organic compounds.

• This is because oxygen has 6 valence electrons, so it’s missing two for its full set of 8 valence electrons. Oxygen forms two covalent bonds (shared electron pairs) to get 8 electrons.
• Reminder: C has four bonds and H has one bond

Functional Group: a group of atoms that gives an organic molecule a specific set of properties.

Oxygen can form a variety of functional groups when it combines in certain ways with carbon and hydrogen.

Alcohol
Acid
Ether
Ester
Aldehyde
Ketone

 

A line is usually not drawn to show a bond between O and H, but the bond is still there.

is the same as

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