Oxocarbon
any binary compound of carbon and oxygen
In chemistry, an oxocarbon or oxide of carbon is a chemical compound consisting only of carbon and oxygen. The simplest and most common oxocarbons are carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Many other stable (practically if not thermodynamically) or metastable oxides of carbon are known, but they are rarely encountered, such as carbon suboxide (C3O2 or O=C=C=C=O) and mellitic anhydride (C12O9).
Many other oxides are known today, most of them synthesized since the 1960s. Some of these new oxides are stable at room temperature. Some are metastable or stable only at very low temperatures, but decompose to simpler oxocarbons when warmed. Many are inherently unstable and can be observed only momentarily as intermediates in chemical reactions or are so reactive that they exist only in gas phase or have only been detected by matrix isolation.
Graphene oxide and other stable polymeric carbon oxides with unbounded molecular structures exist.
Overview
Carbon dioxide (CO2) occurs widely in nature, and was incidentally produced by humans and nature since pre-historical times, by breathing, the combustion of carbon-containing substances, and fermentation of foods such as beer and bread. It was gradually recognized as a chemical substance, formerly called spiritus sylvestris ("forest spirit") or "fixed air", by various chemists in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The public source identifies “Oxocarbon” as any binary compound of carbon and oxygen. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Oxocarbon, binary and compound.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Oxocarbon”, the useful work is to connect “any binary compound of carbon and oxygen” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1778613. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Oxocarbon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.