Introduction to Organic Chemistry
by Jimmy Ding '23
Have you ever wondered what organic chemistry is? Maybe you have checked the organic chemistry textbook and seen the definition: the chemistry that researches compounds that contains carbon. However, you may suspect that the definition is too vague - compounds such as graphite, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbonic acid are not organic compounds. So, what kind of characteristics could organic compounds have?
In ancient times, people have widely used organic compounds for specific purposes. For example, many dyes such as indigo, the oldest known dye, which was derived from the leaves of dyer’s woad herb, isatis tinctoria, and from the indigo plant, indigofera tinctoria, Alizarin, a red dye extracted from the madder plant, and Yellow, which came from the leaves of weld and the bark of the North American oak tree. Also, organic compounds took a spot in people’s beverages from a long time ago. Alcohol, the most common and popular one is a great example to illustrate this.
Because these compounds are derived or extracted from natural resources, when studying organic chemistry at an early age, many chemists originally thought that life was supernatural and the molecules it produced didn't obey the law of inorganic chemistry, but instead formed by ‘vital’ force. For example, those compounds could only be made inside of living organisms and could not be synthesized outside of a living creature. This theory is called Vitalism, proposed by the leading scientist at that time, Berzelius.
In the 19th century, a German chemist, Friedrich Wöhler questioned Berzelius’s theory of vitalism. In 1828, Wöhler conducted an experiment with ammonium cyanate, heating lead cyanate and ammonia solution(all inorganic compounds) to form crystals of urea. (organic compounds).
In 1845, the ‘vitalism’ theory was finally abandoned as chemist Adolf Kolbe created the organic substance acetic acid by combining oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen.
Now, inorganic and organic chemistry still don’t have a clear boundary. However, inorganic chemical laws are applied to the field of organic chemistry and they work well. Based on those laws, chemists produce millions of organic compounds and constantly synthesize new ones in progression. Many organic compounds make our life much easier such as polyvinyl chloride(PVC), the main component of plastic bags, octane, the major substance in fuel, and penicillin, an antibiotic that helps us to cure viral infections.
