Chemical compound

A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element is therefore not a compound.

There are four types of compounds, depending on how the constituent atoms are held together:

molecules held together by covalent bonds

ionic compounds held together by ionic bonds

intermetallic compounds held together by metallic bonds

certain complexes held together by coordinate covalent bonds.

A chemical formula specifies the number of atoms of each element in a compound molecule, using the standard abbreviations for the chemical elements and numerical subscripts. For example, a water molecule has formula H2O indicating two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Many chemical compounds have a unique CAS number identifier assigned by the Chemical Abstracts Service. Globally, more than 350,000 chemical compounds (including mixtures of chemicals) have been registered for production and use.

A compound can be converted to a different chemical substance by interaction with a second substance via a chemical reaction. In this process, bonds between atoms may be broken in either or both of the interacting substances, and new bonds formed.