A Tiny Lesson on Organic Compounds
You must have heard off and on about the word 'organic' in relation to food, clothing and even furniture and your curiosity might have been aroused on finding out what is the meaning organic compounds. Are these used in the same context as organic foods and other such stuff or is this completely a different topic?
What Are Organic Compounds?
Did you know that the organic compounds are part of a large class of chemical compounds that contain carbon? The exceptions to this definition are the carbon oxides, cyanides and the carbon itself, which are considered as inorganic.
This group of compounds got their name around the 19th Century when it was assumed that all organic compounds can be synthesized solely through a live force (living organism) or as it was called in Latin - 'vis vitalis'. Those which were synthesized by other (mechanical) forces were labeled as inorganic.
This theory was rejected after Friedrich Wolher made public the Wolher synthesis. In this experiment he was able to successfully synthesize urea using ammonium sulfate and potassium cyanate thus proving that organic compounds could be synthesized inorganically as well. The Wolher synthesis paved the way to the modern chemical industry where a good number of organic compounds are now produced artificially.
Some of the organic compounds that are obtained only from natural sources because their artificial production would not be cost efficient and at the same time they are easily found in living organisms, such as vitamins (B12), some major sugars, terpenoids, alkanoids, among others.
How Many Types of Organic Compounds Are There?
To be short with the answer - many; this group consists of about half of the total chemical compounds known to man.
You have the aromatic compounds which draw their name from the inclusion an element called benzene in their molecular structure. You also have the functional organic compounds groups such as amines, alcohols, alkenes and aldehydes among others. Then there are the organometallic compounds which are characterized by the inclusion of one metal atom in their structure. You will be surprised to learn that the plastics and polymers are counted among organic compounds as well.
The most well known and important organic compounds in biochemistry (the branch that studies these compounds) are the amino acids, sugars, lipids, antigens, enzymes, fatty acids, proteins, hormones, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, neutransmitters, peptides, vitamins and so on. The study of these compounds help humans in many areas including medicines, genetically engineering of plants and microbiology to name a few.
