Organic compound

from the elements by chemical manipulation.

Vitalism survived for a while even after the rise of modern atomic theory and the replacement of the Aristotelian
elements by those we know today. It rst came under question in 1824, when Friedrich Whler synthesized oxalic acid, a compound known to occur only in
living organisms, from cyanogen. A more decisive experiment was Whlers 1828 synthesis of urea from the
inorganic salts potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate. Urea had long been considered an organic compound, as it was known to occur only in the urine of living organisms. Whlers experiments were followed by
many others, where increasingly complex organic substances were produced from inorganic ones without the
involvement of any living organism.

1.2 Modern classication

Methane is one of the simplest organic compounds

Even though vitalism has been discredited, scientic

nomenclature retains the distinction between organic and
inorganic compounds. The modern meaning of organic
compound is any compound that contains a signicant
amount of carboneven though many of the organic
compounds known today have no connection to any substance found in living organisms.

An organic compound is any member of a large class

of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose
molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of
carbon (such as CO and CO2 ), and cyanides are considered inorganic.[1] The distinction between organic and There is no single ocial denition of an organic cominorganic carbon compounds, while useful in organizing pound. Some textbooks dene an organic compound as
the vast subject of chemistry... is somewhat arbitrary.[2] one that contains one or more C-H bonds. Others include C-C bonds in the denition. Others state that if
Organic chemistry is the science concerned with all as- a molecule contains carbonit is organic.
pects of organic compounds. Organic synthesis is the
Even the broader denition of carbon-containing
methodology of their preparation.
molecules requires the exclusion of carbon-containing
alloys (including steel), a relatively small number of
carbon-containing compounds such as metal carbonates
1 History
and carbonyls, simple oxides of carbon and cyanides, as
well as the allotropes of carbon and simple carbon halides
and suldes, which are usually considered inorganic.
1.1 Vitalism
The C-H denition excludes compounds that are historically and practically considered organic. Neither urea
nor oxalic acid is organic by this denition, yet they were
two key compounds in the vitalism debate. The IUPAC
Blue Book on organic nomenclature specically mentions urea[3] and oxalic acid.[4] Other compounds lacking
C-H bonds that are also traditionally considered organic
include benzenehexol, mesoxalic acid, and carbon tetrachloride. Mellitic acid, which contains no C-H bonds, is
considered a possible organic substance in Martian soil.
C-C bonds are found in most organic compounds, except

Main article: Vitalism

The word organic is historical, dating to the 1st century. For many centuries, Western alchemists believed in
vitalism. This is the theory that certain compounds could
be synthesized only from their classical elementsearth,
water, air, and reby the action of a life-force (vis vitalis) that only organisms possessed. Vitalism taught that
these organic compounds were fundamentally dierent
from the inorganic compounds that could be obtained
1

6 SEE ALSO

some small molecules like methane and methanol, which Most polymers (a category that includes all plastics and
have only one carbon atom in their structure.[5]
rubbers), are organic synthetic or semi-synthetic comThe C-H bond-only rule also leads to somewhat arbi- pounds.
trary divisions in sets of carbon-uorine compounds, as,
for example, Teon is considered by this rule inorganic
but Tefzel organic. Likewise, many Halons are considered inorganic, whereas the rest are considered organic.
For these and other reasons, most sources believe C-H
compounds are only a subset of organic compounds.
In summary, most carbon-containing compounds are organic, and almost all organic compounds contain at least
a C-H bond or a C-C bond. A compound does not need to
contain C-H bonds to be considered organic (e.g., urea),
but many organic compounds do.

2.3 Biotechnology
Several compounds are industrially manufactured utilizing the biochemistry of organisms such as bacteria and
yeast. Two examples are ethanol and insulin. Regularly
the DNA of the organism is altered to express desired
compounds, often not ordinarily produced by that organism. Sometimes the biotechnologically engineered compounds were never present in nature in the rst place.

3 Nomenclature
2

Classication

The IUPAC nomenclature of organic compounds slightly

Main article: Organic chemistry Classication of diers from the CAS nomenclature.
organic compounds
Organic compounds may be classied in a variety of
ways. One major distinction is between natural and synthetic compounds. Organic compounds can also be classied or subdivided by the presence of heteroatoms, e.g.,
organometallic compounds, which feature bonds between
carbon and a metal, and organophosphorus compounds,
which feature bonds between carbon and a phosphorus.
Another distinction, based upon the size of organic
compounds, distinguishes between small molecules and
polymers.

2.1

Natural compounds

4 Databases
The CAS database is the most comprehensive repository for data on organic compounds. The search
tool SciFinder is oered.
The Beilstein database contains information on 9.8
million substances, covers the scientic literature
from 1771 to the present, and is today accessible via
Reaxys. Structures and a large diversity of physical and chemical properties is available for each substance, with reference to original literature.
PubChem contains 18.4 million entries on compounds and especially covers the eld of medicinal
chemistry.

Natural compounds refer to those that are produced by

plants or animals. Many of these are still extracted from
natural sources because they would be more expensive to
produce articially. Examples include most sugars, some There is a great number of more specialized databases for
alkaloids and terpenoids, certain nutrients such as vitamin diverse branches of organic chemistry.
B12 , and, in general, those natural products with large or
stereoisometrically complicated molecules present in reasonable concentrations in living organisms.
5 Structure determination
Further compounds of prime importance in biochemistry
See Structure determination
are antigens, carbohydrates, enzymes, hormones, lipids
and fatty acids, neurotransmitters, nucleic acids, proteins,
peptides and amino acids, lectins, vitamins, and fats and Today, the main tools are proton and carbon-13 NMR
spectroscopy, IR Spectroscopy, Mass spectrometry,
oils.
UV/Vis Spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography.[6]

2.2

Synthetic compounds

Compounds that are prepared by reaction of other compounds are known as synthetic. They may be either
compounds that already are found in plants or animals or
those that do not occur naturally.

6 See also
Inorganic compounds
List of chemical compounds

3
List of organic compounds
Organometallic compounds

References

[1] From the denition of organic compounds are also

excluded automatically the allotropes of carbon such as
diamond and graphite, because they are formed by atoms
of the same element, so they are simple substances, not
compounds.
[2] Spencer L. Seager, Michael R. Slabaugh. Chemistry for
Today: general, organic, and biochemistry. Thomson
Brooks/Cole, 2004, p. 342. ISBN 0-534-39969-X
[3] IUPAC Blue Book, Urea and Its Derivatives Rule C971. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
[4] IUPAC Blue Book, Table 28(a) Carboxylic acids and related groups. Unsubstituted parent structures. Retrieved
2009-11-22.
[5] S. A. Benner, K. G. Devine, L. N. Matveeva, D. H.
Powell (2000). The missing organic molecules on
Mars. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
97 (6): 24252430. Bibcode:2000PNAS...97.2425B.
doi:10.1073/pnas.040539497. PMC 15945. PMID
10706606.
[6] Ern Pretsch, Philippe Bhlmann, Martin Badertscher
(2009), Structure Determination of Organic Compounds
(Fourth, Revised and Enlarged Edition). Springer-Verlag
Berlin Heidelberg

External links
Organic Compounds Database

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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