Q.Give the structure of CO and CO₂.

Carbon monoxide, CO, is made by burning carbon in a limited supply of oxygen (2C + O₂ → 2CO); on an industrial scale by reacting carbon with air, giving producer gas (a CO/N₂ mixture); and in the laboratory, in pure form, by dehydrating methanoic acid with conc. sulphuric acid.

It is a colourless, odourless, highly poisonous gas, only slightly water-soluble, that burns in air with a blue flame to CO₂. With chlorine (light or charcoal present) it gives the poison gas phosgene, COCl₂. It is a strong reducing agent, capable of reducing metal oxides to the free metal (e.g. Fe₂O₃ → Fe). Under pressure with H₂ (as syn gas), it gives methanol; in the oxo process, mixed with ethene and H₂, it gives propanal; in the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, CO and H₂ over a metal catalyst (500-700 K, <50 atm) give saturated and unsaturated hydrocarbons. CO also forms zero-oxidation-state metal carbonyl complexes with transition …