Chemistry: Organic vs Inorganic Chemistry

[0:14]Okay, welcome uh to my Aspire to HE lecture or presentation on uh chemistry. uh organic versus inorganic chemistry, of course. So my name is Dr. Lee Jones, I'm an academic at the University of Wolverhampton, and it's my pleasure to deliver this to you. Okay, so before we talk about the difference between inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry, we're going to need to talk about uh chemistry in general, and it's the central science. Essentially, there's a big vein running through science. uh it basically connects physics uh and chemistry with things like biology and other things such as theoretical chemistry, nuclear chemistry, biochemistry, uh materials chemistry, of course, forensic science, and chemical engineering, both subjects that we do that we do offer at the University of Wolverhampton as well. So it's a huge area, and it does split into roughly three different areas. However, these areas, as you'll find out over the years if you do start to study chemistry, they merge into one big kind of uh area called chemistry. So first of all, organic chemistry is essentially the study of the structure and behavior of organic compounds, and I'm going to discuss what organic compounds mean uh very soon. Inorganic chemistry is, of course, the study and structure of inorganic compounds. So essentially what chemists tend to do is make new materials, albeit they may be inorganic materials, they may be organic materials, but we tend to make new materials. And they make them for a reason, of course, they may have some kind of hopeful behavior or an ability to do something that will help uh the public. Okay, for instance, once we've made these materials, of course, we're going to have to work out whether they are actually useful or not, and of course, this comes under the area of physical chemistry and analytical chemistry. So basically, the analysis of compounds to gain a further understanding of their chemical composition, their structure, and of course, to relate their physical properties with their um abilities or applications. Okay, so it's a huge area. So first of all, before we look at different types of uh inorganic and organic materials, essentially we've we just talk briefly about elements, of course, and these are found in the periodic table, and of course, they're found in the ground and in the air. They're made up of single types of atoms and they can't be broken down into simpler substances. In real life, of course, they don't exist as single atoms. They are bound together through chemical bonding. I do have a chemical bonding um presentation for you in this Aspire to HE um collaboration also, and I'll be sort of that will be uploaded soon. But essentially, for instance, if you look at the picture on the top left here, you've got carbon and you got two different types of carbon, sorry, you've got diamond on the right, of course, nice and clear and hard, and of course, the uh graphite uh carbon or a piece of coal essentially on the left, which of course, has a much more sort of um slippery and uh slippery kind of behavior, of course, is the reason that we use pencils, for instance. And on the right-hand side, of course, we've got aluminium sheets, which are, which are just metals, and of course, that material is just made up of aluminium atoms linked together through what we call metallic bonding. And not pictured, of course, is perhaps argon gas, which is, of course, a gas and so it's floating around us in small amounts. However, we can actually as chemists and and there are these materials are found in the ground and and in the air also, but we can actually connect these different elements together to form interesting materials. So, of course, some of them have been around for a long, long time, of course. uh for instance, sodium chloride is what we call a compound, and we call it an ionic compound. And we do call it an inorganic compound as well, because it does not contain carbon, and we'll talk about that later. But essentially, um that contains sodium and chloride ions connected together. Okay, to give you a compound, and this is of course table salt that we uh that we add to our foods. Uh and uh found in in nature, of course, in the sea, for instance, solubilized and and slightly precipitated. If you connect a load of carbons and oxygens and hydrogens together in a in a ring-type structure, you'll notice that you can form a ring called glucose, and this is a sugar. Okay. So essentially, just by combining carbons and protons and oxygens, you can actually form uh sugar, which is a very, very important molecule. And of course, there are many, many more examples of these in the literature and again, found in the ground, and synthesized in laboratories, and found in the air, etc. So as I said, rarely atoms exist individually, compounds, of course, are where the real interest is, and they're formed when atoms of two or more elements join together. So a couple of examples. We've already talked about sodium chloride, which is, of course, NaCl. Second example, of course, is H2O. So in other words, two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom, they're really ions, but that's for for further another day. Combine in a 2-to-1 ratio to give you water, and of course, water is incredibly important to all of us. Without water, we would not exist, of course. Again, similarly to the previous examples of glucose, if you were to combine in this case nine carbons, eight protons, or eight hydrogens, I should say, and eight oxygens in the in and put them in this arrangement, then this is simply aspirin, which of course, is is a medicine that we take to to um for headache relief, and of course, it's actually used to thin the blood for some uh patients as well, nowadays. So, so in other words, this should show you the huge scope of chemistry. Just by simply combining different elements in different ratios, you can form really interesting materials. So what is an organic compound and what is an inorganic compound? Well, on the top left, we have an organic compound, which is caffeine. Now organic compounds uh contain carbon atoms, okay? So anything containing a carbon atom, you could call an organic compound. So caffeine, um I don't know about you guys, but I love coffee. It's fantastic, and of course, caffeine is the major sort of chemical in coffee that gives you that alertness. Um and uh and so it's it's very very special chemical for a lot of people. Underneath, you'll see graphene. Now this is similar to graphite, which is a lump of coal essentially, but this is uh graphene, which is essentially made of carbon atoms linked together in a in a sort of hexagonal chicken wire arrangement, and this is a truly two-dimensional material, and it's the first two-dimensional material. And this is incredibly important for many reasons. It's got massive applications in all sorts of things because it's incredibly light and it's incredibly strong, conductive, it can do all sorts. It's been used, for instance, to um to filter water up to a high quality to drinking level, just by passing water through it. Uh and uh it's used in things like the new type of light bulbs, for instance, and it really is the wonder material nowadays, so have a have a look at that in the literature. Likewise, if you took look on the top top right, we've got Guanine, which is again, it looks similar to caffeine, but it's very different. It's actually a DNA base, okay? So in other words, this molecule is one of the molecules that are found right in the middle of DNA. Okay, and of course, DNA is essentially the material, or the information carrier in our bodies, and so essentially, it allows life to happen, and it allows us to maintain life. So the importance of guanine cannot be overemphasized, of course. Inorganic materials are also important. Essentially, these are materials that do not contain carbon, okay? And so these will include metals. So for instance, on the left-hand side here, I've got real gold, um and so essentially, if anyone has watched Gold Divers on Discovery Channel, will know that it's fantastic. You can find it if you dig dig deep enough and dig hard enough and clever enough for it, you can find nuggets of gold. So some people actually dive to the bottom of the uh the seabed to do this. Very dangerous, of course, and it's worth a lot of money. On the right-hand side, so that's essentially, that's made up of gold atoms linked together, so nothing but gold atoms. On the right-hand side, however, is something called pyrite, which is fool's gold, because it basically, it's not gold, but it looks like gold. And on the bottom right is the actual unit cell, and I'll tell you about a unit cell in a second, but essentially, it's the unit cell of pyrite. The grey spheres are the the the sulfite are the sulfur atoms, or ions, I should say, and the yellow spheres are the iron ones, and essentially, if you connect them in this particular way, or when they connect in this particular way, they form a mineral. um called pyrite or called Fool's Gold sometimes, okay? A unit cell essentially is, by the way, is just imagine this is a sugar cube, okay? And then just imagine that the real material, the whole big bulk material that that you find pictured above it, is essentially lots of those sugar cubes arranged into the into the packet that you purchase those sugar cubes. Okay, so that's a quick sort of definition on uh inorganic versus organic compounds. In reality, though, what what you will find out as you continue to study chemistry is that these areas merge into one, as I mentioned at the start. So in other words, there are materials that contain both metals and carbon atoms, and we call these organometallics. and they're incredibly interesting as well for uh many reasons including catalysis. So, uh but that's for another day. Thank you for listening, and goodbye.