Some things are made of carbon.
These things help all living things. Plants and animals need them to grow. They are part of you! Can you find something living today?
Many things are made of carbon.
These things are called organic compounds. They are very important because all life uses them.
Plants can take air and water to make food. This food is a type of organic compound. Some of these are found in nature. Others are made by people in labs. They can even be made using tiny living things. These special pieces of carbon help the world work.
Organic compounds are special types of matter. Most of them contain carbon. Carbon is a very useful element. It can join with other carbon atoms to make long chains. Because of this, there are millions of organic compounds.
All known life is based on these compounds. Living things use a way called the carbon cycle. This set of steps turns carbon dioxide and water into sugars. These sugars are organic molecules.
Some organic compounds are natural. Plants and animals make them. We call these natural products. Other compounds are synthetic. This means people make them in a lab. Most plastics and rubbers are synthetic.
In the past, scientists had an idea called vitalism. They thought only living things could make organic compounds. They believed a "life-force" was needed. But this idea was wrong. In 1828, a scientist named Friedrich Wöhler made urea from non-living parts. Urea is a compound found in urine. This proved that people could make organic things without life. Now, we know organic chemistry is the study of large carbon molecules.
Organic compounds are a special group of chemical substances. Most of them contain the element carbon. Carbon is unique because it can catenate. This means carbon atoms can link together to form long chains. Because of this ability, millions of different organic compounds exist.
While they make up a small part of Earth's crust, they are very important. All known life on our planet is based on these compounds.
Living things use a process called the carbon cycle to make these molecules. This way of working turns carbon dioxide and water into simple sugars. These sugars then become other organic molecules that life needs to grow.
Some organic compounds are natural products made by plants or animals. These include things like vitamins, fats, and proteins. Other compounds are synthetic, which means they are made by people. Most plastics and rubbers are synthetic organic compounds.
In the past, scientists believed in an idea called vitalism. They thought a "vital force" inside living things was needed to make organic compounds. In the 1810s, a scientist named Jöns Jacob Berzelius argued for this idea. He believed you could tell organic and inorganic things apart by how they were made. Vitalism suggested that laboratory experiments could never create organic matter. This view stayed popular for a little while in science.
Everything changed thanks to experiments by Friedrich Wöhler. In 1824, he made oxalic acid from a non-living source. Then, in 1828, he performed an even bigger experiment. He made urea from inorganic salts called potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate. Urea is a compound usually found in the urine of living things. This proved that organic compounds could be made without a "life-force." This discovery helped move science toward modern chemistry.
Today, we use many different tools to study these molecules. We can use things like NMR spectroscopy to see their shapes. Scientists also use huge databases to keep track of them. The CAS database is a very large collection of this data. Another one called PubChem has over 18.4 million entries. These tools help us understand how organic compounds work in our world. They help us study everything from medicine to new materials.
Organic compounds are a specific subclass of chemical compounds defined by their relationship to carbon. While chemists do not have one single, perfect definition, most agree that organic compounds are the primary subject of organic chemistry. Generally, a compound is considered organic if it contains carbon–hydrogen or carbon–carbon bonds. This includes alkanes, such as ethane, and many of their derivatives.
Because carbon has the unique ability to catenate, it can form long chains with other carbon atoms. This ability allows for the existence of millions of different organic compounds.
Defining the exact boundary between organic and inorganic chemistry can be difficult. For historical reasons, several carbon-containing substances are classified as inorganic. These include simple oxides of carbon like carbon dioxide, as well as carbonates and cyanides. Even some carbon-containing alloys, such as steel, are considered inorganic. Other exceptions include carbides and the allotropes of pure carbon, such as diamond and graphite. Because these are simple substances made of only one element, they are not usually called chemical compounds.
In the past, scientists followed a theory known as vitalism. This was the belief that organic substances were created by a "vital force" or "life-force" found only in living organisms. In the 1810s, Jöns Jacob Berzelius argued that organic compounds required living bodies for their synthesis. He believed that inorganic compounds could be made through chemical manipulation in a lab, but organic ones could not. This distinction kept the two fields strictly separate in the minds of early scientists.
This view changed through the work of Friedrich Wöhler in the 1820s. In 1824, Wöhler successfully synthesized oxalic acid from cyanogen, a non-living source. A few years later, in 1828, he performed an even more famous experiment. He synthesized urea from the inorganic salts potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate. Since urea was known to occur in the urine of living things, this proved that organic molecules could be made without a life-force. This discovery helped disprove vitalism and expanded the scope of organic chemistry.
Today, organic compounds are categorized in several ways. One major division is between natural products and synthetic compounds. Natural products are molecules produced by plants or animals, such as vitamins, fats, and proteins. Many are still extracted from nature because they are too complex to make easily in a lab. Synthetic compounds are those prepared by reacting other chemicals. This category includes most polymers, such as the plastics and rubbers used in everyday life.
Another way to classify these molecules is by their structure and composition. Some organic compounds are small molecules, while others are large polymers. Scientists also look for heteroatoms, which are atoms other than carbon or hydrogen. For example, organometallic compounds feature bonds between carbon and a metal. There are also organophosphorus compounds, which contain phosphorus. In biotechnology, scientists use organisms like bacteria or yeast to manufacture compounds like insulin. They often alter the DNA of these organisms to produce specific organic molecules.
Organic chemistry is also deeply connected to the Earth's systems. All known life is based on organic compounds. Living things use the carbon cycle to turn carbon dioxide and water into simple sugars. These sugars then become the building blocks for other organic molecules. In industry, many synthetic organic compounds come from petrochemicals. These are formed from biological matter that has degraded underground under high pressure and temperature. This links the ancient history of life to the modern chemical industry.
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