1.1: What is Inorganic Chemistry?
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Where did the name "Inorganic Chemistry" come from? Well, the term "Organic Chemistry" literally means the chemistry of life. Organic chemistry is the study of carbon-based molecules because the first molecules that were isolated from living organisms contained carbon. On the other hand, minerals and other non-living things seemed to be made of other elements. For some time in our history, scientists believed that the chemical difference between living and non-living things was carbon. So, if "organic" molecules are the molecules of life, then is "inorganic chemistry" the "chemistry of death"? Almost? "Inorganic" chemistry historically meant the chemistry of "non-living" things; and these were non-carbon based molecules and ions.
The names "organic" and "inorganic" come from science history, and still today a generally-accepted definition of Inorganic Chemistry is the study of non-carbon molecules, or all the elements on the periodic table except carbon (Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). But, this definition is not completely correct because the field of Inorganic Chemistry also includes organometallic compounds and the study of some carbon-based molecules that have properties that are familiar to metals (like conduction of electricity). This makes the field of inorganic chemistry very broad, and practically limitless. A great way to understand the breadth of the field is to take a look at the abstracts in the latest article of Inorganic Chemistry. Or, check out the 20 most-read articles from this past year using the links below.
External links:
- The journal, Inorganic Chemistry: https://pubs.acs.org/journal/inocaj
- The latest issue of Inorganic chemistry: https://pubs.acs.org/toc/inocaj/current
- The most popular Inorganic Chemistry articles from the past month and the past year: https://pubs.acs.org/action/showMostReadArticles?journalCode=inocaj
Practice
To appreciate the breadth of Inorganic Chemistry, go to the most recent issue of Inorganic Chemistry and look at the titles and visual abstracts. Identify at least 4 sub-fields of Inorganic Chemistry.
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There are a lot of correct answers here! The point here is that you notice that Inorganic Chemistry is a very broad field. It has something for almost everyone because many other fields overlap with Inorganic Chemistry. You might notice that some of the sub-fields you identified are also interdisciplinary fields between inorganic chemistry and another discipline. For a list of some of the subfields of Inorganic Chemistry, check this Wikipedia article.