Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds and their uses in medicine, agriculture, and everyday life. The field began with ancient use of organic dyes, medicines, and poisons from natural sources. In the 19th century, scientists discovered that organic compounds could be synthesized in the lab, rather than requiring a special "vital force" only found in nature. Major advances were then made in discovering, analyzing, and synthesizing organic compounds based on new theories of chemical bonding. Today, organic chemistry remains a productive field that studies both natural carbon compounds and those relevant to biological systems.
Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds and their uses in medicine, agriculture, and everyday life. The field began with ancient use of organic dyes, medicines, and poisons from natural sources. In the 19th century, scientists discovered that organic compounds could be synthesized in the lab, rather than requiring a special "vital force" only found in nature. Major advances were then made in discovering, analyzing, and synthesizing organic compounds based on new theories of chemical bonding. Today, organic chemistry remains a productive field that studies both natural carbon compounds and those relevant to biological systems.
Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds and their uses in medicine, agriculture, and everyday life. The field began with ancient use of organic dyes, medicines, and poisons from natural sources. In the 19th century, scientists discovered that organic compounds could be synthesized in the lab, rather than requiring a special "vital force" only found in nature. Major advances were then made in discovering, analyzing, and synthesizing organic compounds based on new theories of chemical bonding. Today, organic chemistry remains a productive field that studies both natural carbon compounds and those relevant to biological systems.
Organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds and their uses in medicine, agriculture, and everyday life. The field began with ancient use of organic dyes, medicines, and poisons from natural sources. In the 19th century, scientists discovered that organic compounds could be synthesized in the lab, rather than requiring a special "vital force" only found in nature. Major advances were then made in discovering, analyzing, and synthesizing organic compounds based on new theories of chemical bonding. Today, organic chemistry remains a productive field that studies both natural carbon compounds and those relevant to biological systems.
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1of 10
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIC CHEMISTRY Historical Background of Organic Chemistry
Organic chemistry is the area of chemistry that involves the
study of carbon and its compounds. Carbon is now known to form a seemingly unlimited number of compounds. The uses of organic compounds impact our lives daily in medicine, agriculture, and general life. In theory (Oparin, 1923) organic chemistry may have its beginnings with the big bang when the components of ammonia, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and methane combined to form amino acids, an experiment that has been verified in the laboratory (Miller, 1950). Organic chemicals were used in ancient times by Romans and Egyptians as dyes, medicines and poisons from natural sources, but the chemical composition of the substances was unknown. In the 16th century organic compounds were isolated from nature in the pure state (Scheele, 1769) and analytical methods were developed for determination of elemental composition (Lavoisier, 1784). Scientists believed (Berzelius, 1807) that organic chemicals found in nature contained a special "vital force" that directed their natural synthesis, and therefore, it would be impossible to accomplish a laboratory synthesis of the chemicals. later in the century Frederich Wöhler (1828) discovered that urea, a natural component in urine, could be synthesized in the laboratory by heating ammonium cyanate. His discovery meant that the natural "vital force" was not required to synthesis organic compounds, and paved the way for many chemists to synthesize organic compounds. By the middle of the nineteenth century many advances had been made into the discovery, analysis and synthesis of many new organic compounds. Understanding about the structures of organic chemistry began with a theory of bonding called valence theory (Kekule, Couper, 1858). Organic chemistry developed into a productive and exciting science in the nineteenth century. Many new synthetic methods, reaction mechanisms, analytical techniques and structural theories have been developed. Toward the end of the century much of the knowledge of organic chemistry has been expanded to the study of biological systems such as proteins and DNA Volumes of information are published monthly in journals, books and electronic media about organic and biological chemistry. The vast information available today means that for new students of organic chemistry a great deal of study is required. Students must learn about organic reactions, mechanism, synthesis, analysis, and biological function. The study of organic chemistry, although complex, is very interesting, and begins here with an introduction of the theory of chemical bonding.