Organic Compounds

1. Organic Compounds (Sec 8.3 pg 215-220)

2. Modern organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon (organic) compounds.

3. Organic compounds: • have C atoms as their basis, and contain more carbon (by mass) than any other element • always contain H, and sometimes O, N, and other non-metals • always have covalent bonds

4. Table 1 (p.215) lists some common organic compounds. • You can determine if a compound is organic by determining how much C is present:

5. What makes carbon so special? • It has 4 valence electrons, which means that it can make long chains and big molecules. • Each valence e can pair up with another single e from another atom, (such as H or another C), to form a covalent bond!

6. Biological molecules (polysaccharides, fats, DNA, etc.) are examples of big organic molecules.

7. The simplified structures here are called structural formulas– they help visualize organic molecules. • The basis for drawing these structural formulas is Lewis Diagrams, but when drawing structural formulas, there are some key differences: • the covalent bond (shared e) is shown as a ‘stick’ or line

8. The basis for drawing these structural formulas is Lewis Diagrams, but when drawing structural formulas, there are some key differences: • we don’t show the non-bonding e dots, but it is understood they are still there (Fig.4 p.217)

9. The simplest type of organic compound is called a hydrocarbon – they consist of C and H exclusively (e.g. octane in the diagram below).

10. Other common families of organic compounds are alcohols (always have an –OH group) and ethers (always an –O–group between hydrocarbon groups) – see Table 3 p.219