They have properties ranging from reactive and saltlike; found in metals such as sodium, magnesium, and aluminum, to a non reactive and metallic, such as titanium and niobium.(Beggot 4) Carbon carbons containing nonmetals are usually gases or liquids with low boiling points. Carbon monoxide, a gas, is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. It forms during the incomplete combustion of carbon.(Kinoshita 215-223) It is highly toxic to animals because it inhibits the transport of oxygen in the blood by hemoglobin.(web site #2) Carbon dioxide is a colorless, almost odorless gas that formed by the combustion of carbon. It is a product that results from respiration in most living organisms and is used by plants as a source of carbon. Frozen carbon dioxide, known as dry ice, is used as a refrigerant. Fluorocarbons, such as Freon, are used as refrigerants. (Kinoshita 225-226).
Organic compounds are those compounds tat occur in nature. The simplest organic compounds consist of only carbon and hydrogen, the hydrocarbons. The state of matter for organic compounds depends on how many carbons are contained in it. If a compound has up to four carbons it is a gas, if it has up to twenty carbons it's a liquid, and if it has more tan twenty carbons it's a solid. (Kinoshita 230-237) .
The carbon cycle is the system of biological and chemical processes that make carbon available to living things for use in tissue building and energy release. All living cells are composed of proteins consisting of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen in various combinations, and each living organism puts these elements together according to it's own genetic code. To do this the organism must have these available in special compounds built around carbon. These special compounds are produced only by plants, by the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a process in which chlorophyll traps and uses energy from the sun in the form of light.