What Is Organic Chemistry
The Chemistry of C, H, N and O
"What Is Organic Chemistry?" - Organic Chemistry, at its most simple and fundamental
level, is just atoms of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen bonding
together to form the molecules that make up the compounds of living
matter (organic compounds).
To understand Organic Chemistry it is necessary to have a good
understanding of atomic structure and how atoms share electrons to form
covalent bonds. If you have not reviewed our secrets of basic chemistry
please do so before continuing with our secrets of organic chemistry.
Click here to go to our Atomic Structure page.
What Is Organic Chemistry? - C,H,O
As we learned in our Atomic Structure section, Carbon has four (4) electrons in its outer shell and for maximum
stability it wants eight (8) electrons in its outer shell. Hydrogen has
one (1) electron in its outer shell and because it is such a small atom,
it only needs two (2) electrons in its outer shell to be full.
As we see in the picture above, Carbon and Hydrogen can meet their
chemical goals of having their outer shells full of electrons by sharing
electrons with each other and forming a covalent bond between one
Hydrogen and one Carbon atom. Hydrogen can achieve a full outer shell by
sharing one of Carbon's four electrons. However, Carbon needs to share
electrons with four (4) atoms of Hydrogen to achieve a full eight (8)
shared electrons in its outer shell.
When four Hydrogen atoms share their electrons with one Carbon atom such
that four covalent C-H bonds are formed the result is one of the
simplest organic molecules, the hydrocarbon methane (CH4).
When one atom of Carbon, one atom of Oxygen and four atoms of Hydrogen
share electrons to achieve an electron-filled outer shell of each element, the resulting organic compound
formed is the simplest Alcohol.
As shown in the picture above, one atom of Carbon shares three of its
electrons with three Hydrogens. The Carbon atom completes filling its
outer shell with electrons by sharing one additional electron from
Oxygen. This leaves Oxygen with just seven electrons in its outer
shell. Since Oxygen wants eight electrons in its outer shell it achieves
this by sharing one final electron with the fourth Hydrogen which also
satisfies the outer shell requirements of Hydrogen.
The resulting organic molecule formed is the simplest Alcohol, Methyl
Alcohol or Methanol (CH3OH).
What Is Organic Chemistry? - C,H,N
In the picture above we have Carbon, Hydrogen and Nitrogen combining
by sharing electrons to achieve a full outer shell. The Carbon once again
shares electrons with three Hydrogens to get seven electrons in its
outer shell. But since Carbon needs eight electrons for a full shell it
gets its final electron by sharing one electron with Nitrogen.
We can see from the atomic structure of Nitrogen that it has 5 electrons
in its outer shell and after sharing one of Carbon's electrons, the
Nitrogen only has six electrons in its outer shell. To achieve the goal
of a full outer shell of eight electrons the Nitrogen shares electrons
with two Hydrogen atoms. In this way Nitrogen fills its outer shell with
electrons and the two Hydrogen atoms also achieve a full outer shell by
sharing two of the Nitrogen's electrons.
The resulting organic compound formed is the simplest Amine, Methyl Amine
(CH3NH2) as shown in the picture above.
What Is Organic Chemistry? - Summary
From the discussion provided in the previous two sections on how
Methane, Methanol and Methyl Amine are formed, you should have a good
basic answer to the question "What is organic Chemistry?". In this
section we will summarize what we have learned and teach you a short-hand,
graphical way of representing organic compounds.
In the two previous sections we learned tha organic compounds are
formed by sharing electrons between two atoms. This sharing is
represented by a pair of electrons between the two element symbols. Each electron in the pair has a different shape to represent the
element it originally came from as shown in the picture above enclosed
in the dashed ring.
This sharing of a single electron with another atom is called a single
covalent bond or just a single bond for short. This single covalent bond
can also be represented by a single solid line as shown in the picture
above and for convenience this is the most common representation of
single bonds in organic compounds.
To illustrate this new representation of organic compounds the new
"stick structures" of Methane (CH4), Methanol
(CH3) and Methyl Amine (CH3H2) are
shown in the picture above.
In this section we answered the question "What Is Organic Chemistry" by
showing you how the atomic structure is the basis for the formation of
covalent bonds between the "Organic" elements Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen
and Nitrogen and how through the formation of these covalent bonds three
of the simplest organic compounds are formed.
Once you understand this fundamental, foundational concept you will know
the most important secret of Organic Chemistry:
"Organic Compounds are formed from C, H, O and N by having these
elements combine in ways that each element achieves a electron-full
outer shell."
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