CO

Carbon monoxide · Carbonous oxide, Monocarbon monoxide

Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas that is produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials. It is a vital chemical building block in industrial processes and serves as a precursor for the synthesis of various organic compounds.

CO
Crystal structure of CO (orthorhombic, Pnma (No. 62))
Ground-state structure · Materials Project
Overview

Key Properties

Cross-validated computational properties for Carbon monoxide, aggregated across 6 databases.

Band Gap

5.71–6.15 eV
Range across DFT structures

Energy Above Hull

0.549 eV/atom
Best (lowest) across sources

Stability

Above hull
4 DFT sources

Structures

70
6 databases, 22 space groups
Validation

Cross-Source DFT Agreement

How well independent DFT databases agree on the thermodynamics of CO. Tight agreement means computed properties can be trusted without re-running calculations.

Agreement Score

1.00 / 1.00
Trust tier: high

Hull Spread

0.000 eV
EAH spread across sources

Sources Compared

3
jarvis, materials_project, nomad

Space Group Consensus

All match
Crystallography

Reported Structures

Lowest-energy structures reported for CO, ranked by energy above hull.

Space GroupCrystal SystemBand Gap (eV)E above hull (eV/atom)E/atom (eV)Density (g/cm³)
Pnma (No. 62)orthorhombic0.000.5494-7.8672.17
P213 (No. 198)cubic6.150.6618-7.7540.88
P212121 (No. 19)orthorhombic5.710.6698-7.7460.89
R3c (No. 161)trigonal5.850.6773-7.7391.03
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic2.93
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic3.52
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic2.67
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic3.05
C2/m (No. 12)Monoclinic3.44
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic3.01
P-1 (No. 2)Triclinic3.06
Pmm2 (No. 25)Orthorhombic3.51
Uses

Applications

Where Carbon monoxide is used.

Chemical synthesisMetallurgyFuel productionIndustrial gas manufacturing
Reference

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Carbon monoxide, answered from cross-validated data.

What is CO?

Carbon monoxide is a colorless and odorless gas that is produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon-containing materials. It is a vital chemical building block in industrial processes and serves as a precursor for the synthesis of various organic compounds.

More questions
What is CO used for?
Carbon monoxide (CO) is used in chemical synthesis, metallurgy, fuel production, and industrial gas manufacturing.
What is the band gap of CO?
Carbon monoxide (CO) has a DFT-computed band gap of 5.71–6.15 eV across 70 reported structures.
Is CO a metal, semiconductor, or insulator?
With a wide band gap up to 6.15 eV it is an insulator / wide-band-gap material.
Is CO thermodynamically stable?
Carbon monoxide (CO) has a lowest energy above hull of 0.549 eV/atom (above hull).
What is the crystal structure of CO?
The lowest-energy reported polymorph of Carbon monoxide (CO) is orthorhombic symmetry, space group Pnma (No. 62).
What is the density of CO?
The computed density of the ground-state structure of Carbon monoxide (CO) is 2.17 g/cm³.
How many polymorphs of CO are known?
70 structures of CO are reported across 6 databases, spanning 22 distinct space groups.
What elements does CO contain?
Carbon monoxide (CO) contains C and O (2 elements).
Where does the data for CO come from?
CO data is cross-referenced from materials_project, mpaloe, jarvis, cod.
Data sources & attribution
  • materials_project — Data from the Materials Project. Cite: Jain et al., APL Materials 1, 011002 (2013).
  • mpaloe — Data from mpaloe.
  • jarvis — Data from JARVIS (NIST). Cite: Choudhary et al., npj Comp. Mater. 6, 173 (2020).
  • cod — Data from the Crystallography Open Database. Cite: Grazulis et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 40, D420 (2012).

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