Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon and hydrogen; therefore, carbides, carbonates, carbon oxides and elementary carbon are not organic. The study of organic compounds is termed organic chemistry, and since it is a vast collection of chemicals (over half of all known chemical compounds), systems have been devised to classify organic compounds. A few of the compound classes are as follows:

Many organic compounds are also of prime importance in biochemistry:

Antigens
Polysaccharides, carbohydrates and sugars
Enzymes
Hormones
Lipids and fatty acids
Neurotransmitters
Nucleic acids
Proteins, peptides and amino acids
Vitamins

History and nomenclature

The name "organic" is a historical name, dating back to 19th century, when it was believed that organic compounds could only be synthesised in living organisms through vis vitalis - the "life-force". The theory that organic compounds were fundamentally different from those that were "inorganic", that is, not synthesized through a life-force, was disproven with the synthesis of urea, an organic compound, from potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate by Friedrich Wöhler.

The dividing line between organic and inorganic is contested and historically arbitrary; generally speaking, however, organic compounds are defined as those compounds which have carbon-hydrogen bonds, and inorganic compounds, those without. Thus carbonic acid is inorganic, whereas formic acid, the first fatty acid, is organic, although it could as well be called "carbonous acid".

This definition would leave out non-hydrogen-containing fluorocarbons like Teflon and Freon, or put them in a grey area, since they are carbon-containing and have many of the same properties of C-H compounds, due to the similarity of the C-F bond to the C-H bond.

Most pure organic compounds are artificially produced; however, the term "organic" is also used to describe products produced without artificial chemicals (see organic production).

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History and nomenclature

See also