Chemical compound
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A chemical compound is a chemical made by joining together atoms of different chemical elements. The different atoms stick together so strongly that the compound behaves like one kind of substance. What it is made of depends on how the atoms are joined together.
Chemical compounds can be liquids , like water which is made from atoms of hydrogen and oxygen joining together. They can also be solids, like salt (made from atoms of sodium and chlorine). Some chemical compounds are natural, which means that they are not made by people. Some chemical compounds, often called just chemicals, are synthetic, which means they made by people using machines.
Sometimes when you mix together two different liquids, they can turn into a different liquid that is not anything like the ones you started with. You can also sometimes mix powder into a liquid to make a new liquid. This is called 'chemistry'.
Chemists are people who find new ways to mix liquids and other things together in order to make new liquids that do new things. They make chemicals in order to find new ways to do things, like to make a better glue, or to make new medicines, or to make things clean, for example.
Most of the time the word 'chemical' is only used to talk about liquids that can hurt people, or things that you have to be careful when you use them. A lot of chemicals are used by people every day, even though a lot of people are afraid of chemicals. A lot of chemicals are safe, when used the right way. Some chemicals are not safe at all, but those are not used by normal people every day. Chemicals that are not safe are called 'hazardous chemicals', and most of them can only be used by people who have gone to a special school.
Some people who work in factories are near chemicals when they work, and some of them can be dangerous. Those people should do special things to make sure they are safe, and sometimes they have to wear special clothes that stop the chemicals from hurting their body.
