Benzene is the simplest of the arenes, a family of organic compounds

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 (see below for more on the definition controversy for this word). 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 based on the functional groups they carry are as follows: Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1100x1098, 176 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Hydrocarbon Organic compound ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1100x1098, 176 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Hydrocarbon Organic compound ... Benzene, also known as benzol, is an organic chemical compound with the formula C6H6. ... An aromatic hydrocarbon (abbreviated as AH), or arene is a hydrocarbon, the molecular structure of which incorporates one or more planar sets of six carbon atoms that are connected by delocalised electrons numbering the same as if they consisted of alternating single and double covalent bonds. ... A chemical compound is a chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemically bonded chemical elements, with a fixed ratio determining the composition. ... In chemistry, a molecule is an aggregate of at least two atoms in a definite arrangement held together by special forces. ... General Name, Symbol, Number carbon, C, 6 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 14, 2, p Appearance black (graphite) colorless (diamond) Atomic mass 12. ... General Name, Symbol, Number hydrogen, H, 1 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 1, 1, s Appearance colorless Atomic mass 1. ... Carbide In chemistry, Carbide confusingly refers to three different things: 1. ... In inorganic chemistry, a carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid. ... An oxide is a chemical compound of oxygen with other chemical elements. ... The periodic table of the chemical elements A chemical element, often called simply an element, is a substance that cannot be decomposed or transformed into other chemical substances by ordinary chemical processes. ... Organic chemistry is a specific discipline within the subject of chemistry. ... In organic chemistry functional groups are specific groups of atoms within molecules, that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules. ...

Methane is the simplest possible organic compound

Many organic compounds are also of prime importance in biochemistry: Acid anhydrides have the general formula (RCO)2O, and appear to be the dehydration product of two carboxylic acid molecules. ... An acyl halide (also known as an acid halide) is an organic compound containing a carbon atom which is double_bonded to an oxygen atom and singly bonded to a chlorine atom. ... In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. ... An aldehyde. ... An alkane in organic chemistry is a saturated hydrocarbon without cycles, that is, an acyclic hydrocarbon in which the molecule has the maximum possible number of hydrogen atoms and so has no double bonds. ... An alkene in organic chemistry is an unsaturated hydrocarbon containing at least one carbon to carbon double bond. ... Amide functional group In chemistry, an amide is one of two kinds of compounds: - the organic functional group characterized by a carbonyl group (C=O) linked to a nitrogen atom (N), or a compound that contains this functional group (pictured to the right); or - a particular kind of nitrogen anion. ... Ammonia Amines are organic compounds and a type of functional group that contain nitrogen as the key atom. ... In chemistry, an aromatic molecule is one in which electrons are free to cycle around circular arrangements of atoms, which are alternately singly and doubly bonded to one another. ... In chemistry, azo compounds generally have a molecular formula of the form R-N=N-R, in which R and R can be either aromatic or aliphatic. ... Structure of a carboxylic acid The 3D structure of the carboxyl group A space-filling model of the carboxyl group Carboxylic acids are organic acids characterized by the presence of a carboxyl group, which has the formula -(C=O)-OH, usually written as -COOH. In general, the salts and anions... General formula of a carboxylate ester. ... Ether is the general name for a class of chemical compounds which contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two (substituted) alkyl groups. ... The haloalkanes (also known as halogenoalkanes) are a group of chemical compounds, consisting of alkanes, such as methane or ethane, with one or more halogens linked, such as chlorine or fluorine, making them a type of organic halide. ... An imine is a functional group or chemical compound containing a carbon-nitrogen double bond. ... Ketone group A ketone is either the functional group characterized by a carbonyl group linked to two other carbon atoms or a chemical compound that contains this functional group. ... A nitrile is any organic compound which has a -C≡N functional group. ... Nitro compounds are organic compounds that contain one or more nitro functional groups (-NO2). ... An organometallic compound is partially characterized by the presence of one or more metal-carbon bonds, in which the carbon involved would, apart from the metal-carbon bond, be otherwise considered a part of an organic compound. ... In organic chemistry, phenols, sometimes called phenolics, are a class of chemical compounds consisting of a hydroxyl group (-OH) attached to an aromatic hydrocarbon group. ... Polymer is a term used to describe molecules consisting of structural units and a large number of repeating units connected by covalent chemical bonds. ... The term plastics covers a range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic condensation or polymerization products that can be molded or extruded into objects or films or fibers. ... In organic chemistry, a thiol is a compound that contains the functional group composed of a sulfur atom and a hydrogen atom (-SH). ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (973x1025, 9 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Methane Organic compound ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (973x1025, 9 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Methane Organic compound ... The simplest hydrocarbon, methane, is a gas (at standard temperature and pressure, STP) with a chemical formula of CH4. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

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

An antigen is a substance that stimulates an immune response, especially the production of antibodies. ... Polysaccharides (sometimes called glycans) are relatively complex carbohydrates. ... Carbohydrates are molecules that contain oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon atoms. ... This article deals with sugar as food and as an important, widely traded commodity; the word also has other uses; see Sugar (disambiguation) A sugar is a form of carbohydrate; the most commonly used sugar is a white crystalline solid, sucrose; used to alter the flavor and properties (mouthfeel, perservation... Neuraminidase ribbon diagram An enzyme (in Greek en = in and zyme = blend) is a protein, or protein complex, that catalyzes a chemical reaction and also controls the 3D orientation of the catalyzed substrates. ... Hormone is also the NATO reporting name for the Soviet/Russian Kamov Ka-25 military helicopter. ... Figure 1: Basic lipid structure. ... In chemistry, especially biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid (or organic acid), often with a long aliphatic tail (long chains), either saturated or unsaturated. ... Neurotransmitters are chemicals that are used to relay, amplify and modulate electrical signals between a presynaptic and a postsynaptic neuron. ... Highly simplified diagram of a double-stranded nucleic acid. ... A representation of the 3D structure of myoglobin, showing coloured alpha helices. ... Peptides (from the Greek πεπτος, digestible), are the family of short molecules formed from the linking, in a defined order, of various α-amino acids. ... In chemistry, an amino acid is any molecule that contains both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. ... Vitamins are organic chemicals that a given living organism requires in trace quantities for good health, but which the organism cannot synthesize, and therefore must obtain from its diet. ...

Number crunching

The Beilstein database contains a large collection of organic compounds. A cheminformatics study involving 5.9 million substances and 6.5 million reactions from this database showed that the organic compound universe consists of a core of around 200,000 molecules strongly connected to each other and a large periphery (3.6 million molecules) around it ^[1]. Core and periphery are surrounded by a group of non-connected small islands containing 1.2 million molecules, a model resembling the world wide web. More key statistics: The Beilstein database is one of the largest databases in the area of organic chemistry. ... Cheminformatics is the use of computer and informational techniques, applied to a range of problems in the field of chemistry. ... WWWs historical logo designed by Robert Cailliau The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is a global, read-write information space. ...

• The core molecules (only 3.5% of the total) are involved in 35% of all reactions giving rise to 60% of all molecules.
• The average distance between two molecules in the core is 8.4 synthetic steps and 95% of all connecting reactions are fewer than 15 steps. Any molecule in the periphery can be reached by one from the core in fewer than 3 steps.
• The relative size of the core peaked in 1880 and has since then declined.
• The core contains 70% of the top 200 industrial chemicals.
• An optimised chemical inventory of 300 chemicals for a hypothetical chemical company allows the synthesis of up to 1.2 million organic compounds and contains 10 Wittig reagents, 6 Grignard reagents, 2 DNA building blocks and 18 aromatic aldehydes.

The Wittig reaction is a chemical reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with a triphenyl phosphonium ylide (often called a Wittig reagent) to give an alkene and triphenylphosphine oxide. ... A Grignard Reagent is an alkyl- or aryl- magnesium halide. ... The general structure of a section of DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions for the biological development of a cellular form of life or a virus. ... The chemical compound benzaldehyde (C6H5CHO) consists of a benzene ring with an aldehyde group attached to one carbon. ...

History and nomenclature

The name "organic" is an 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 disproved with the synthesis of urea, an "organic" compound by definition of its known occurrence only in the urine of living organisms, from potassium cyanate and ammonium sulfate by Friedrich Wöhler in the Wöhler synthesis. History is often used as a generic term for information about the past, such as in geologic history of the Earth. When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of human societies. ... Urea is an organic compound of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen, with the formula CON2H4 or (NH2)2CO. Urea is also known as carbamide, especially in the recommended International Non-proprietary Names (rINN) in use in Europe. ... Friedrich Wöhler (July 31, 1800 - September 23, 1882) was a German chemist, best-known for his synthesis of urea, but also the first to isolate several of the elements. ... The Wöhler synthesis is the conversion of ammonium cyanate into urea . ...

The dividing line between organic and inorganic is presently contested, and is historically arbitrary. Generally speaking, organic compounds are often defined as those compounds which have carbon-hydrogen bonds, and inorganic compounds, those without. This even-more specific definition has some problems, notably that (with some historical irony) it excludes urea itself as an organic, since urea has carbon and hydrogen, but no carbon-hydrogen bond. In this scheme, carbonic acid is inorganic and so is oxalic acid, whereas formic acid is organic. This definition would also 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. A carbon-hydrogen bond is a single bond between carbon and hydrogen atoms, most commonly found in organic compounds See Also Hydrocarbon ... Inorganic chemistry is the branch of chemistry concerned with the properties and reactions of inorganic compounds. ... Carbonic acid (ancient name acid of air or aerial acid) is the only inorganic carbon acid, and has the formula H2CO3. ... Oxalic acid (IUPAC name: ethanedioic acid, formula C2H2O4) is a dicarboxylic acid with structure (HOOC)-(COOH). ... Formic acid (systematically called methanoic acid) is the simplest carboxylic acid. ... Teflon is polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a polymer of fluorinated ethylene. ... Freon is a trade name for a group of chlorofluorocarbons used primarily as a refrigerant. ...

Most pure organic compounds today are artificially produced, although a few are extracted from natural sources because they would be far too expensive to produce artificially (for example, sucrose).

See also

• Organic chemistry
• Inorganic chemistry of carbon
• List of organic compounds
• List of compounds

Organic chemistry is a specific discipline within the subject of chemistry. ... There is a rich variety of carbon chemistry that does not fall within the realm of organic chemistry and is thus called inorganic carbon chemistry. ... This page aims to list well-known organic compounds, including organometallic compounds, to stimulate the creation of Wikipedia articles. ... The original list from this page has been split into the following three lists, as the number of compounds became too long. ...

References

1. ^ The Core and Most Useful Molecules in Organic Chemistry Kyle J. M. Bishop, Rafal Klajn, Bartosz A. Grzybowski Angewandte Chemie International Edition Volume 45, Issue 32 , Pages 5348 - 5354 2006 DOI:10.1002/anie.200600881