Carbon monoxide or CO is an odorless, tasteless, flammable and colorless gas which have the density slightly lesser than the atmosphere. No animals that have the hemoglobin in the blood as carrier of the oxygen including vertebrate and invertebrate can stand this particular gas. This gas is toxic to such animals when they encounter. The concentration of this gas above 35 ppm. The CO is toxic to the animals when it is in the form of gas; however, animals produce this CO in their body in very low quantities as metabolism. Scientist think that the CO has some biological functions involved in animal’s body. In the atmosphere the life span of the carbon monoxide is less and spatially variable as this gas has an important role while forming the ground level ozone gas. This gas is also known by the name of Carbonous oxide or Carbon (II) oxide. The carbon monoxide has one atom of carbon and one atom of oxygen. These two atoms are connected with the help of a triple bond. This bond is consisting of pair of covalent bonds along with one covalent bond, which is dative in nature. The carbon monoxide is isoelectronic and can bond with other molecules having triply bonded molecule, which is diatomic and consisting ten valence electron. The name of such electrons are nitrosonium cation, molecular nitrogen and cyanide anion. The carbon monoxide can also be referred as the oxocarbon’s simplest form. The ligand of the carbon monoxide is known as the carbonyl in coordination complexes. The Aristotle did the first discovery related to the carbon monoxide as he discovered that the burning coals produces toxic fumes that are harmful to the animals. However, the first discovery of the carbon monoxide was done by the French chemist de Lassone in the year 1776. He produced carbon monoxide by heating coke along with the zinc oxide. At first, de Lassone concluded the gas as hydrogen because the color of the burning flame was in blue as carbon monoxide is highly flammable. The Scottish chemist and scientist William Cruikshank first determined that the carbon monoxide is a compound and it contains oxygen and carbon. The toxicity was first investigated and studied by the scientist Claude Bernard, with the presence of dogs, in the year 1846. During the World War II, the carbon monoxide was used along with other gas mixtures to run vehicles in some parts of the world where the amount of diesel and gasoline was insufficient. The toxicity of this gas was used during holocaust by the Nazi extermination camps.

There are many sources of the carbon monoxide. The main production of the carbon monoxide is from the compounds that contains carbon and when partial oxidation is performed on them. The main reason of forming this gas is the deficiency of oxygen to form carbon dioxide. When carbon monoxide burns with the help of oxygen, it produces carbon dioxide. The biggest source of the carbon monoxide is the photochemical reactions that happen in the troposphere, which generates more than 5×10¹² kg of CO every year. There are some other natural sources of the CO, which includes forest fires, volcanoes, and other sources.

The carbon monoxide’s molar mass is 28.0. According to the ideal gas law, the gas is less dense than the normal air. The length of the bond between the oxygen atom and the carbon atom is 112.8 pm. The length of the bond is very consistent because of the triple bond. The carbon monoxide’s ground electronic state is single as unpaired electrons are not there.

The Lewis structures are also referred as the Lewis dot formulas, Lewis dot diagrams, electron dot structures, Lewis electron dot structures or Lewis dot structures. Gilbert N. Lewis introduced this structure in the year 1916. These diagrams are used to show the atom bonding of a molecule. In addition, the diagrams are used to show the existing electron lone pairs in the molecule. Any molecule that is bonded covalently can be represented and drawn with the help of the Lewis structures. Lines are drawn between the atoms to denote the shared pairs of a chemical bond. The structure use the chemical symbol and shows each atoms along with the position of the atoms in the structure. The lines are drawn only between the atoms that participate in the bonding. The electrons that do not participate in the bonding are represented by simple dots. They are placed beside the atoms instead of between the symbols of the molecules. The specialty of the Lewis structures is the number of electrons that are shown in the structure are exactly equal to the number of valence electrons present in every atom individually. Lewis structures do not represent the Non-valence electrons. There is a simple procedure to construct the Lewis structure. The proposed method eliminates the need for counting the electrons. Valence electrons help to draw the atoms. Then with the help of valance electrons by pairing, those bonds are formed. The valence electrons actively participate in the process of the bond making. When the electrons are removed or added from or to the electrons, cations and anions are formed.

To draw the Lewis structure of the CO, first the number of valence electrons need to be known. After determining the number of valence electrons, they need to be placed between the placed around central atoms for completing the octets. We know the number of valence electrons in the CO molecule and the number is 10. For the Lewis structure of the CO, carbon and oxygen are bonded with a triple bond to complete the octets of atoms with the help of the valence electrons.

Here the central atom of the structure is C and the other atom, which is bonded with a single bond, is O.

C-O

Then the demo structure need to be drawn by putting the electrons around the atoms.

:::C-Ö::

Here the number of electrons are 14 but CO have 10 valence electrons. Hence, the new structure is-

: C≡O

Now we have to add electrons to give the atoms octet form,

:C≡O:

Above structure is the Lewis structure of carbon monoxide (CO). There is a triple bond between the atoms and they are in octet form.