Organic chemistry is a field of study that focuses on organic substances and compounds. They can be classified by their origin, structure, functional groups, and molecular weight.
What Is Organic Chemistry?
Around 1807, Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius coined the phrase "organic chemistry" to describe the study of molecules formed from natural living resources. However, it wasn't until 1828 that German scientist Friedrich Wöhler used ammonium cyanate (an inorganic substance) in laboratory experiments and discovered that chemical reactions could change it into urea (an organic molecule).
He disproved Berzelius' theory by demonstrating through these tests that organic matter may be created in a lab without being connected to life. Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, a German chemist, later described organic chemistry as the field of chemistry dealing with carbon compounds in 1861. This groundbreaking definition put carbon at the center of organic chemistry.
In short, inorganic chemistry examines all other chemical elements, while organic chemistry explores molecules based on carbon and hydrogen. In contrast to organic chemicals, which cannot exist without carbon, inorganic compounds can contain hydrogen and carbon.
Furthermore, organic chemistry focuses on compounds formed by covalent bonds, which means they share electrons in their atoms' last energy levels, while inorganic chemistry studies compounds formed synthetically by bonds involving electrostatic interactions, which are good conductors of heat and electricity.
There are over 50 million organic compounds, and they can be categorized using their origin (natural or artificial), structure (aliphatic compounds, aromatic compounds, organometallic compounds, heterocyclic compounds), functional groups (alkanes, alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, and amines), and molecular weight or size (monomers or polymers).
Organic chemistry can now be applied to any field, including food, transportation, pharmaceuticals, and genetics.
How to Study Organic Chemistry?
Organic chemistry focuses on the study of organic molecules, including their creations, reactions, mechanisms of reactions, product production, and applications. Most substances examined in organic chemistry have at least one carbon-hydrogen bond.
Although organic chemistry can be incredibly challenging, there are several fundamental techniques that you can use to make it simpler, which we will be sharing here:
1. Review your notes.
A decent place to start is to read through your notes, but actively revisiting them is preferable. Summarize the information and rewrite your notes. Create visual summaries or concept maps to show how everything relates to one another.
2. Ask for help.
Utilize the opportunity to go and get assistance from your professor and teaching assistants. They are there to help you in learning, so take advantage of this chance to ask any questions you might have been reluctant to in class. If you are struggling, getting extra assistance from a one-on-one tutor can also be helpful.
3. Number your carbons.
It is simple to lose track of the amount of carbons when responding to homework or exam questions. There should always be an equal amount of carbons in the reactants and products. The carbons don't need to be numbered for proper labeling; count them so you'll know how many there are and where to place them in the goods.
4. Recognize the relationships between properties.
Understanding the interactions between various molecules is crucial to organic chemistry. Even while some rote memory is required, it is much more crucial to comprehend the ideas underlying these fundamental interactions than merely memorize the interactions themselves.
5. Use modeling kits and reaction maps.
You may construct chemical structures in three dimensions using modeling kits. Visualizing the structure can help you understand a compound more effectively than simply reading the 2D version on the board when answering questions. Reaction maps, on the other hand, let you see every functional group and the reactions that create it. The reaction maps can connect responses to move from one compound to the target compound. Once you have determined the functional groups involved in the reaction, use the maps to solve the issue backward.
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