Never Blame The Students
It is critical for teachers to accept responsibility for every aspect of their course. Thus, when a student may appear distracted in class, I ask myself what I could do to better engage that student. Likewise, when writing exams, it is my responsibility as the teacher to make sure the content and difficulty level are commensurate with the class materials and the level of support and resources I have provided. Otherwise, exam averages can be low, and this can be extremely disheartening to both the students and the professor. If an exam average turns out to be low in my class, I make it a point to let the students know that I made some judgment errors, as it is highly unlikely that 400 students performed poorly on a fair exam.
Characteristics Due To Presence Of Covalent Bonds
A covalent bond is a chemical bond that involves the sharing of electron pairs between atoms that in turn results in a balance of attractive and repulsive forces between the atoms. The presence of a covalent bond renders certain characteristics to the organic compounds. These include:
- Low melting points and boiling points in comparison to the inorganic compounds.
- Organic acids and bases are less stronger and thus they have a limited dissociation in an aqueous medium.
- They exhibit the phenomenon of isomerism in which a single molecular formula represents several organic compounds differing in physical and chemical properties.
- They are volatile in nature.
Organic Chemistry Studies Chemical Reactions Occurring Inside Living Beings
The main reason organic chemistry is so important is that it studies chemical reactions that take place in living beings. Without organic chemistry, scientists would not have been able to explore the mechanisms of different changes occurring during metabolism. In addition, organic chemistry provides detailed information about how different organic chemicals react to other compounds and which products are released in our bodies as a result of the chemical reactions.
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Inorganic Chemistry Is Involved In The Production Of Medicines
Inorganic compounds are commonly used as drugs or diagnostic agents. Medicinal uses of inorganic compounds make inorganic chemistry even more critical. Some of the most common inorganic pharmaceuticals include silver sulphadiazine , aluminum and magnesium hydroxides , barium sulfate , iodine , zinc oxide , magnesium oxide , and lithium carbonate .
Organic Chemistry Is Essential For Understanding Biochemical Principles And Biotechnology
Since organic chemistry studies chemical reactions occurring in living beings, it is essential for understanding basic biochemical principles. Organic chemistry allows biochemists to explore specific chemical reaction mechanisms and determine factors influencing the way organic compounds react with other chemicals. Organic chemistry also contributes to biotechnology, which involves the use of living organisms and various bioprocesses to create or modify products. Without organic synthesis reactions, medical, agricultural, industrial, and environmental biotechnology branches would not have existed.
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Organic Chemistry Studies And Synthesizes Polymers
Without organic chemistry, scientists would not have been able to study natural polymers or create synthetic ones. While natural organic polymers provide basic structural materials for living beings and participate in key biochemical processes, synthetic polymers are widely used in the production industry. Polymers are used as raw materials for a wide range of products, ranging from synthetic fabric and clothing to plastic items and polymer-based paints.
How Organic Chemistry Is Important To Everyday Living
If you are meticulous, you can see traces of organic chemistry everywhere in life. It is the traces and effects of organic chemistry in life that make it important.
Organic compounds with carbon and their covalent bondings are the raw material of vital molecules of the body and environmental substances.
Several reactions such as burning fuels, cleaning yourself, body-related processes , etc, are studied in organic chemistry.
Oil and its properties, reactions, and applications have been discovered by organic chemistry. Oil is called black gold because of its significant importance in life or a variety of industries.
To live safer than before, its better to have a few useful information about organic chemistry. According to facing organic chemistry-related reactions in everyday living, this information will help us. For example, Can I mix these household chemicals to get better hygiene? or Which fuel should I choose to keep my car and its engine strong as well?
Basic Organic Chemistry is key to understanding other sciences like other branches of chemistry, some topics of physics, biology, geology, because of that you need to apply an understanding of organic chemistry to some careers .
Organic chemistry is directly involved with fuels, so these educations and chemists are essential for vehicle development.
Creating new products from oil and exporting them to other countries even countries which have many oil resources, undoubtedly have positive effects on the economy.
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Inorganic Chemistry Plays A Crucial Role In Organic Synthesis
Organic synthesis allows scientists to produce various organic compounds efficiently. While organic synthesis provides essential organic chemicals, such as drugs, the overall process usually involves the use of inorganic compounds as well. For instance, metal or metal oxide catalysts are widely used in organic synthesis reactions. Besides, activated carbon is used to remove impurities from crude organic reaction products. Moreover, aqueous solutions of inorganic compounds may also be used during the filtration of newly-synthesized organic compounds.
Organic Chemistry Involves Very Long Chains
Unlike general chemistry where the compounds are comparatively short, organic chemistry uses compounds that have a lot of elements involved, thereby greatly complicating the problem.
Though you are working mainly with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur, these elements can be rearranged in countless ways to create entirely different products.
These long chains add complexity to an already challenging course consisting of aromaticity, catalyzers, mechanisms, isomers, and nomenclature, just to name a few.
All these things require a great deal of focus and understanding to truly comprehend, so the long chains add even more complexity.
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What Subjects Does Chemistry Go With
When choosing more than one major, students often pair chemistry with biology or physics. If you are interested in exploring the chemical processes within and relating to living organisms, then biochemistry could be an excellent option for you. A laboratory-based science bringing biology and chemistry together, you can expect to use knowledge and techniques from chemistry to better understand and solve biological problems. For instance, biochemistry covers a range of scientific disciplines, including genetics, microbiology, and forensics, to name a few. Under these disciplines, biochemistry has played and continues to play a crucial role.
On the other hand, physical chemistry, or studying physics and chemistry together, is a branch of chemistry that uses physics principles to measure, correlate, and explain chemical interactions. Physical chemistry is a great area to look into if you enjoy investigating how matter behaves on a molecular or atomic level. Additionally, it is a good route to take if you are interested in taking physics and mathematics classes. In physical chemistry jobs, you will find yourself both working in the lab and computing calculations, and reviewing data at a desk.
Many prospective chemistry majors find themselves asking Is chemistry hard?. If that question resonates with you, read our linked guide to gain a better understanding of why chemistry has this reputation, and why it shouldnt deter you from pursuing it.
Why Is Organic Chemistry So Hard
Organic chemistry, known as orgo among college students, is notoriously one of the most challenging courses in university.
It is taken by pre-med students, aspiring engineers, and scientists.
However, organic chemistry has a nasty reputation for causing even the smartest students to nearly fail.
There are a lot of challenging science classes in college, but none seems to outrank organic chemistry.
Why is this class so hard?
Well, it is a combination of abstract thinking, intense studying, and complicated reactions.
Keep reading for ten reasons organic chemistry is so hard, and then scroll down to find some tips on how to ace it.
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Common Questions About The Importance Of Organic Chemistry And Carbon
Q: What happens when carbon interacts with oxygen in some cases?
Carbon can sometimes form a double bond with oxygen when they meet. In that instance, carbon can also bond with two more hydrogens to form a new carbon-based compound called formaldehyde. Formaldehydes chemical formula is CH2O.
Q: How is methanol formed?
To form methanol , a methane molecule and an OH group are needed. Methane, CH4, takes away one of its hydrogen atoms and replaces it with the OH group to form a chemical formula CH3OH.
Q: What other elements can carbon bond to?
Carbon can bond to a large number of elements in the periodic table to form carbon-based compounds. For example, carbon, in combination with nitrogen and hydrogen, forms a compound called amine. Amines are used in the formation of amino acids.
Why Organic Chemistry Is So Important To Study Of Biology
Organic Chemistry is important because most reactions in Biologyare organic reactions. Organic Chemistry is the study of structure,properties, and reactions of organic compounds.
Biology is the study of biological organisms and processes. Allbiological organisms and processes are created, maintained andchanged through chemical processes and are made up of chemicalcompounds. Without an understanding organic chemistry one cannotaccurately and fully understand biology.
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There Are Always Exceptions
Of course, there are some things in organic chemistry that you will need to memorize, like the way certain molecules react with one another or the formula for various reactions.
However, another reason organic chemistry is so hard is that there are always exceptions to the rules.
It might be hard to understand why these exceptions occur and add another layer of complication because you will have to memorize the rules in addition to the exceptions.
Like learning a language, there is no way to memorize everything.
It must be intuitive, and of course, there will always be exceptions to the rules.
Keep this in mind as you learn chemistry and you will fare much better in the course.
Once you understand why these exceptions occur, you will be even better off.
Organic Chemistry Of Graphene
Organic chemistry of pristine graphene is an emerging area where functionalization of the graphene surface with small molecules is used to tune the optoelectronic properties of graphene. Although Hummers method uses the oxidation of graphene layers, it produces a severely oxygenated surface, and thus, the electronic and mechanical properties of the resulting GO are significantly different from those of graphene. The rich chemistry of GO functional groups is efficiently explored for functional materials in diverse fields including chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as materials science.42 The poor dispersive nature of unoxidized graphene in solvents was a challenge until successful liquid-phase exfoliation techniques were introduced. The reactions of CVD-grown graphene and exfoliated graphene43 with small molecules are still being explored, as discussed below.
Figure 6.4. Some organic reactions of pristine graphene.
Table 6.4. List of Organic Reactions of Pristine Graphene and Characterization Techniques
| Graphene Type |
|---|
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Organic Chemistry Allows Scientists To Create And Explore New Chemicals
Organic chemistry is a laboratory-based science that involves the production of organic compounds from scratch. Organic chemistry leads to the synthesis of numerous useful products, including agricultural chemicals, drugs, food additives, plastics, paint, enzymes, cosmetics, and various synthetic materials. Along with synthesizing many essential substances, organic chemists develop efficient ways to produce compounds, making the overall process even more valuable.
Proteins Function As Enzymes
If you were trying to type a paper, and every time you hit a key on your laptop there was a delay of six or seven minutes before you got a response, you would probably get a new laptop. In a similar way, without enzymes to catalyze chemical reactions, the human body would be nonfunctional. It functions only because enzymes function.
Enzymatic reactionschemical reactions catalyzed by enzymesbegin when substrates bind to the enzyme. A substrate is a reactant in an enzymatic reaction. This occurs on regions of the enzyme known as active sites . Any given enzyme catalyzes just one type of chemical reaction. This characteristic, called specificity, is due to the fact that a substrate with a particular shape and electrical charge can bind only to an active site corresponding to that substrate.
Binding of a substrate produces an enzymesubstrate complex. It is likely that enzymes speed up chemical reactions in part because the enzymesubstrate complex undergoes a set of temporary and reversible changes that cause the substrates to be oriented toward each other in an optimal position to facilitate their interaction. This promotes increased reaction speed. The enzyme then releases the product, and resumes its original shape. The enzyme is then free to engage in the process again, and will do so as long as substrate remains.
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Skincare And Cosmetic Products Contain Organic Chemicals As Active Ingredients
If you are using any skincare or cosmetic products, you have probably noticed that each has a specific active ingredient responsible for providing benefits. While these products often contain inorganic chemicals, most active ingredients are organic compounds. Some popular active ingredients in skincare products are Alpha and Beta Hydroxy Acids , Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Glycerine, Niacinamide, Retinoids, Peptides, Ceramides, and many more. These organic chemicals are also present in some cosmetic products, boosting their performance and offering various benefits for your skin. WIthout organic chemistry, scientists would not have been able to determine what active ingredients to use for different skincare products.
Catalysiscatalyst: Synthetic Organic Chemistry As A Force For Good
K.C. Nicolaou is currently the Harry C. Olga K. Wiess Professor of Chemistry at Rice University. He previously served concurrently as the founding chair of the Chemistry Department at the Scripps Research Institute and a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego . His research activities focus on the discovery and development of new synthetic strategies and technologies and their applications to the total synthesis of natural and designed molecules of biological and medical importance. He is a co-author of the Classics in Total Synthesis series and Molecules That Changed the World.
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Get A Tutor Before It Gets Too Hard
As soon as you notice yourself struggling with the material, it is imperative that you get a tutor, or at the very least, go to office hours with your professor.
A lot of students who do poorly in organic chemistry perform badly because they wait to get help until it is way too late, sometimes not even until after the student failed two or three exams and the final grade was hanging in the balance.
If you do not develop a solid foundation at the beginning of the course, it is going to be hard to do well later.
It is also important to do well in organic chemistry because there is a good chance that you will have to take harder classes in the future.
If you are studying chemical engineering, you will have to take physical chemistry eventually, which, by many accounts, is even harder than organic chemistry because there is less rote memorization and purely conceptual learning.
If you get a tutor now, you will thank yourself later.
There are also a lot of free online materials you can look at when reviewing organic chemistry.
One of the most trusted sources is Khan Academy, which features videos and practice problems on a lot of the classs most challenging elements .
It even offers its own organic chemistry course.
Check out YouTube for other helpful videos, such as Crash Course, The Organic Chemistry Tutor, Eilot Rintoul, and Leah4sci.
They can help you learn how to approach difficult concepts and practice problems.
Inorganic Chemistry Is Fundamental To Qualitative And Quantitative Analysis
While qualitative and quantitative experiments are performed by analytical chemists, inorganic chemistry plays a crucial role in determining the composition of a given sample or the concentration of an analyte in a sample. This is because many compounds used during the process are inorganic. You may need to make aqueous solutions of inorganic compounds. Or you may even need to determine how much of an inorganic compound is present in a given sample.
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Browse More Topics Under Organic Chemistry
The general characteristics of Organic Compounds include:
- Can be isolated as well as prepared in laboratory
- Comprise almost 90% of all known compounds.
- Mostly built up of only three elements- carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Other elements like halogen, nitrogen as well as phosphorous are also present but to a lesser extent.
- Possess complex structures and high molecular weights
- Their properties are decided by certain active atom or group of atoms known as the functional group.
- They are mostly insoluble in water but soluble in organic solvents.
- They are combustible in nature
- Chemical reactions involving organic compounds proceed at slower rates.
Conflict Of Interest Statement
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Keywords: grand challenges, interface of organic chemistry, new frontiers, interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary
Citation: Ojima I Great Challenges in Organic Chemistry. Front. Chem. 5:52. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2017.00052
Received: 08 June 2017 Accepted: 28 June 2017 Published: 12 July 2017.
Reviewed by:
Copyright© 2017 Ojima. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Iwao Ojima,
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