What is organic chemistry?

What is organic chemistry?
1
Organic chemistry and you
You are already a highly skilled organic chemist. As you read these words, your eyes are using an
organic compound (retinal) to convert visible light into nerve impulses. When you picked up this
book, your muscles were doing chemical reactions on sugars to give you the energy you needed. As
H
O
you understand, gaps between your brain cells are being bridged by simple organic molecules (neuro-
transmitter amines) so that nerve impulses can be passed around your brain. And you did all that
11-cis-retinal
absorbs light when we see
without consciously thinking about it. You do not yet understand these processes in your mind as
well as you can carry them out in your brain and body. You are not alone there. No organic chemist,
NH
however brilliant, understands the detailed chemical working of the human mind or body very well.
2
HO
We, the authors, include ourselves in this generalization, but we are going to show you in this
book what enormous strides have been taken in the understanding of organic chemistry since the
N
science came into being in the early years of the nineteenth century. Organic chemistry began as a
H
tentative attempt to understand the chemistry of life. It has grown into the confident basis of vast
serotonin
multinational industries that feed, clothe, and cure millions of people without their even being
human neurotransmitter
aware of the role of chemistry in their lives. Chemists cooperate with physicists and mathemati-
cians to understand how molecules behave and with biologists to understand how molecules
?
determine life processes. The development of these ideas is already a revelation at the beginning of
We are going to give you
the twenty-first century, but is far from complete. We aim not to give you the measurements of the
structures of organic compounds
skeleton of a dead science but to equip you to understand the conflicting demands of an
in this chapter—otherwise it
would be rather dull. If you do not
adolescent one.
understand the diagrams, do not
Like all sciences, chemistry has a unique place in our pattern of understanding of the universe. It
worry. Explanation is on its way.
is the science of molecules. But organic chemistry is something more. It literally creates itself as it
grows. Of course we need to study the molecules of nature both because they are interesting in their
own right and because their functions are important to our lives. Organic chemistry often studies life
by making new molecules that give information not available from the molecules actually present in
living things.
This creation of new molecules has given us new materials such as plastics, new dyes to colour our
clothes, new perfumes to wear, new drugs to cure diseases. Some people think that these activities are
unnatural and their products dangerous or unwholesome. But these new molecules are built by
humans from other molecules found on earth using the skills inherent in our natural brains. Birds
build nests; man makes houses. Which is unnatural? To the organic chemist this is a meaningless dis-
tinction. There are toxic compounds and nutritious ones, stable compounds and reactive ones—but
there is only one type of chemistry: it goes on both inside our brains and bodies and also in our ?asks
and reactors, born from the ideas in our minds and the skill in our hands. We are not going to set
ourselves up as moral judges in any way. We believe it is right to try and understand the world about
us as best we can and to use that understanding creatively. This is what we want to share with
you.
Organic compounds
Organic chemistry started as the chemistry of life, when that was thought to be different from the
chemistry in the laboratory. Then it became the chemistry of carbon compounds, especially those
found in coal. Now it is both. It is the chemistry of the compounds of carbon along with other ele-
ments such as are found in living things and elsewhere.

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2
1 . What is organic chemistry?
The organic compounds available to us today are those present in living things and those formed
í
You will be able to read towards the
over millions of years from dead things. In earlier times, the organic compounds known from nature
end of the book (Chapters 49–51)
were those in the ‘essential oils’ that could be distilled from plants and the alkaloids that could be
about the extraordinary chemistry that
allows life to exist but this is known
extracted from crushed plants with acid. Menthol is a famous example of a ?avouring compound
only from a modern cooperation
from the essential oil of spearmint and cis-jasmone an example of a perfume distilled from jasmine
between chemists and biologists.
?owers.
O
N
HO
OH
cis-jasmone
MeO
menthol
quinine
N
Even in the sixteenth century one alkaloid was famous—quinine was extracted from the bark of
the South American cinchona tree and used to treat fevers, especially malaria. The Jesuits who did
this work (the remedy was known as ‘Jesuit’s bark’) did not of course know what the structure of
quinine was, but now we do.
The main reservoir of chemicals available to the nineteenth century chemists was coal. Distil-
lation of coal to give gas for lighting and heating (mainly hydrogen and carbon monoxide) also
gave a brown tar rich in aromatic compounds such as benzene, pyridine, phenol, aniline, and
thiophene.
OH
NH2
S
N
benzene
thiophene
pyridine
phenol
aniline
Phenol was used by Lister as an antiseptic in surgery and aniline became the basis for the dyestuffs
industry. It was this that really started the search for new organic compounds made by chemists
rather than by nature. A dyestuff of this kind—still available—is Bismarck Brown, which should tell
you that much of this early work was done in Germany.
H
NH
2N
2
H2N
NH2
N
N
N
N
Bismarck Brown Y
In the twentieth century oil overtook coal as the main source of bulk organic compounds so that
simple hydrocarbons like methane (CH , ‘natural gas’) and propane (CH CH CH , ‘calor gas’)
í
4
3
2
3
became available for fuel. At the same time chemists began the search for new molecules from new
You can read about polymers and
plastics in Chapter 52 and about ?ne
sources such as fungi, corals, and bacteria and two organic chemical industries developed in paral-
chemicals throughout the book.
lel—‘bulk’ and ‘?ne’ chemicals. Bulk chemicals like paints and plastics are usually based on simple
molecules produced in multitonne quantities while ?ne chemicals such as drugs, perfumes, and
CH3
(CH2)n
CH3
?avouring materials are produced in smaller quantities but much more pro?tably.
n = an enormous number
At the time of writing there were about 16 million organic compounds known. How many more
length of molecule is n + 2
carbon atoms
are possible? There is no limit (except the number of atoms in the universe). Imagine you’ve just
made the longest hydrocarbon ever made—you just have to add another carbon atom and you’ve
CH3
(CH2)n
CH2
CH3
made another. This process can go on with any type of compound ad in?nitum.
n = an enormous number
length of molecule is n + 3
But these millions of compounds are not just a long list of linear hydrocarbons; they embrace all
carbon atoms
kinds of molecules with amazingly varied properties. In this chapter we offer a selection.

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Organic compounds
3
What do they look like? They may be crystalline solids, oils,
HO
O
waxes, plastics, elastics, mobile or volatile liquids, or gases.
HO
HO
Familiar ones include white crystalline sugar, a cheap natural
HO
compound isolated from plants as hard white crystals when pure,
O
OH
and petrol, a mixture of colourless, volatile, ?ammable hydrocar-
HO
CH3
CH3
O
bons. Isooctane is a typical example and gives its name to the
CH3
OH
C
CH
octane rating of petrol.
CH3
C
CH3
The compounds need not lack colour. Indeed we can soon
H
HO
2
dream up a rainbow of organic compounds covering the whole
spectrum, not to mention black and brown. In this table we have
sucrose – ordinary sugar
isooctane (2,3,5-trimethylpentane)
isolated from sugar cane
a major constiuent of petrol
avoided dyestuffs and have chosen compounds as varied in struc-
or sugar beet
volatile inflammable liquid
ture as possible.
white crystalline solid
s
Colour
Description
Compound
Structure
red
dark red hexagonal plates
3?-methoxybenzocycloheptatriene-
O
2?-one
p
MeO
orange
amber needles
dichloro dicyano quinone (DDQ)
O
Cl
CN
e
Cl
CN
O
c
yellow
toxic yellow explosive gas
diazomethane
CH2
N
N
green
green prisms with a
9-nitroso julolidine
N
steel-blue lustre
t
r
NO
blue
deep blue liquid with a
azulene
peppery smell
u
purple
deep blue gas condensing
nitroso tri?uoromethane
F
N
to a purple solid
C
O
F
F
m
Colour is not the only characteristic by which we recognize compounds. All too often it is their
odour that lets us know they are around. There are some quite foul organic compounds too; the
smell of the skunk is a mixture of two thiols—sulfur compounds containing SH groups.
skunk spray contains:
+
SH
SH

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4
1 . What is organic chemistry?
S
But perhaps the worst aroma was that which caused the evacuation of the city of Freiburg in 1889.
Attempts to make thioacetone by the cracking of trithioacetone gave rise to ‘an offensive smell which
spread rapidly over a great area of the town causing fainting, vomiting and a panic evacuationºthe
thioacetone
laboratory work was abandoned’.
It was perhaps foolhardy for workers at an Esso research station to repeat the experiment of crack-
ing trithioacetone south of Oxford in 1967. Let them take up the story. ‘Recentlyºwe found ourselves
?
with an odour problem beyond our worst expectations. During early experiments, a stopper jumped
from a bottle of residues, and, although replaced at once, resulted in an immediate complaint of nau-
S
sea and sickness from colleagues working in a building two hundred yards away. Two of our
chemists who had done no more than investigate the cracking of minute amounts of trithioace-
S
S
toneºfound themselves the object of hostile stares in a restaurant and suffered the humiliation of
having a waitress spray the area around them with a deodorantº. The odours de?ed the expected
effects of dilution since workers in the laboratory did not ?nd the odours intolerable . . . and genu-
trithioacetone;
Freiburg was evacuated
inely denied responsibility since they were working in closed systems. To convince them otherwise,
because of a smell from
they were dispersed with other observers around the laboratory, at distances up to a quarter of a
the distillation this compound
mile, and one drop of either acetone gem-dithiol or the mother liquors from crude trithioacetone
crystallisations were placed on a watch glass in a fume cupboard. The odour was detected downwind
in seconds.’
HS
SH
O
There are two candidates for this dreadful smell—propane dithiol (called acetone gem-dithiol
HS
above) or 4-methyl-4-sulfanylpentan-2-one. It is unlikely that anyone else will be brave enough to
resolve the controversy.
4-methyl-4-
propane
Nasty smells have their uses. The natural gas piped to our homes contains small amounts of delib-
sulfanylpentan-
dithiol
2-one
erately added sulfur compounds such as tert-butyl thiol (CH ) CSH. When we say small, we mean
3 3
very small—humans can detect one part in 50 000 000 000 parts of natural gas.
two candidates for
the worst smell in the world
Other compounds have delightful odours. To redeem the honour of sulfur compounds we must
cite the truf?e which pigs can smell through a metre of soil and whose taste and smell is so delightful
no-one wants to find the winner!
that truf?es cost more than their weight in gold. Damascenones are responsible for the smell of roses.
If you smell one drop you will be disappointed, as it smells rather like turpentine or camphor, but
S
S
CH3
CH3
next morning you and the clothes you were wearing will smell powerfully of roses. Just like the com-
the divine smell
pounds from trithioacetone, this smell develops on dilution.
of the black truffle
Humans are not the only creatures with a sense of smell. We can ?nd mates using our eyes alone
comes from this compound
(though smell does play a part) but insects cannot do this. They are small in a crowded world and
O
they ?nd others of their own species and the opposite sex by smell. Most insects produce volatile
compounds that can be picked up by a potential mate in incredibly weak concentrations. Only 1.5
mg of serricornin, the sex pheromone of the cigarette beetle, could be isolated from 65 000 female
beetles—so there isn’t much in each beetle. Nevertheless, the slightest whiff of it causes the males to
gather and attempt frenzied copulation.
damascenone - the smell of roses
The sex pheromone of the Japanese beetle, also given off by the females, has been made by
chemists. As little as 5 µg (micrograms, note!) was more effective than four virgin females in attract-
ing the males.
O
O
OH
O
H
serricornin
japonilure
the sex pheromone of the cigarette beetle
the sex pheromone of the Japanese beetle
Lasioderma serricorne
Popilia japonica
The pheromone of the gypsy moth, disparlure, was identi?ed from a few µg isolated from the
moths and only 10 µg of synthetic material. As little as 2 × 10–12 g is active as a lure for the males in
?eld tests. The three pheromones we have mentioned are available commercially for the speci?c
trapping of these destructive insect pests.

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Organic compounds
5
Don’t suppose that the females always do all the work; both
male and female olive ?ies produce pheromones that attract the
other sex. The remarkable thing is that one mirror image of
disparlure
disparlure
the molecule attracts the males while the other attracts the
O
the sex pheromone of the Gypsy moth
th
h
f th G
th
females!
Portheria dispar
O
O
O
O
O
O
olean
this mirror image isomer
this mirror image isomer
sex pheromone of the olive fly
attracts the males
attracts the females
Bacrocera oleae
What about taste? Take the grapefruit. The main ?avour comes from another sulfur compound
HS
and human beings can detect 2 × 10–5 parts per billion of this compound. This is an almost unimag-
inably small amount equal to 10–4 mg per tonne or a drop, not in a bucket, but in a good-sized lake.
Why evolution should have left us abnormally sensitive to grapefruit, we leave you to imagine.
For a nasty taste, we should mention ‘bittering agents’, put into dangerous household substances
flavouring principle of grapefruit
like toilet cleaner to stop children eating them by accident. Notice that this complex organic com-
pound is actually a salt—it has positively charged nitrogen and negatively charged oxygen atoms—
and this makes it soluble in water.
O
H
N
O
N
O
bitrex
denatonium benzoate
benzyldiethyl[(2,6-xylylcarbamoyl)methyl]ammonium benzoate
Other organic compounds have strange effects on humans. Various ‘drugs’ such
CO2Me
as alcohol and cocaine are taken in various ways to make people temporarily happy.
CH3
OH
N
alcohol
They have their dangers. Too much alcohol leads to a lot of misery and any cocaine
CH
O
3
(ethanol)
at all may make you a slave for life.
O
Again, let’s not forget other creatures. Cats seem to be able to go to sleep at any
cocaine
time and recently a compound was isolated from the cerebrospinal ?uid of cats that makes them, or
- an addictive alkaloid
rats, or humans go off to sleep quickly. It is a surprisingly simple compound.
O
NH2
a sleep-inducing fatty acid derivative
cis-9,10-octadecenoamide
This compound and disparlure are both derivatives of fatty
O
acids, molecules that feature in many of the food problems people
are so interested in now (and rightly so). Fatty acids in the diet are
OH
1
a popular preoccupation and the good and bad qualities of satu-
11
9
rates, monounsaturates, and polyunsaturates are continually in
18
the news. This too is organic chemistry. One of the latest mole-
12
10
cules to be recognized as an anticancer agent in our diet is CLA
CLA (Conjugated Linoleic Acid)
cis-9-trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid
(conjugated linoleic acid) in dairy products.
dietary anticancer agent

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6
1 . What is organic chemistry?
Another fashionable molecule is resveratrole, which may
OH
be responsible for the bene?cial effects of red wine in pre-
HO
venting heart disease. It is a quite different organic com-
pound with two benzene rings and you can read about it in
Chapter 51.
OH
For our third edible molecule we choose vitamin C. This is
?
an essential factor in our diets—indeed, that is why it is called
resveratrole from the skins of grapes
Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a
a vitamin. The disease scurvy, a degeneration of soft tissues,
is this the compound in red wine
vitamin for primates, guinea-pigs,
which helps to prevent heart disease?
and fruit bats, but other mammals
particularly in the mouth, from which sailors on long voyages
can make it for themselves.
like those of Columbus suffered, results if we don’t have vitamin C. It also is a universal antioxidant,
scavenging for rogue free radicals and so protecting us against cancer. Some people think an extra
OH
H
large intake protects us against the common cold, but this is not yet proved.
HO
O
O
Organic chemistry and industry
HO
OH
Vitamin C is manufactured on a huge scale by Roche, a Swiss company. All over the world there are
vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
chemistry-based companies making organic molecules on scales varying from a few kilograms to
thousands of tonnes per year. This is good news for students of organic chemistry; there are lots of
jobs around and it is an international job market. The scale of some of these operations of organic
chemistry is almost incredible. The petrochemicals industry processes (and we use the products!)
over 10 million litres of crude oil every day. Much of this is just burnt in vehicles as petrol or diesel,
but some of it is puri?ed or converted into organic compounds for use in the rest of the chemical
industry. Multinational companies with thousands of employees such as Esso (Exxon) and Shell
dominate this sector.
Some simple compounds are made both from oil and from plants. The ethanol used as a starting
material to make other compounds in industry is largely made by the catalytic hydration of ethylene
from oil. But ethanol is also used as a fuel, particularly in Brazil where it is made by fermentation of
sugar cane wastes. This fuel uses a waste product, saves on oil imports, and has improved the quality
of the air in the very large Brazilian cities, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.
Plastics and polymers take much of the production of the petro-
monomers for polymer
chemical industry in the form of monomers such as styrene, acry-
manufacture
lates, and vinyl chloride. The products of this enormous industry are
everything made of plastic including solid plastics for household
goods and furniture, ?bres for clothes (24 million tonnes per
annum), elastic polymers for car tyres, light bubble-?lled polymers
styrene
for packing, and so on. Companies such as BASF, Dupont, Amoco,
X
Monsanto, Laporte, Hoechst, and ICI are leaders here. Worldwide
Cl
polymer production approaches 100 million tonnes per annum and
O
PVC manufacture alone employs over 50 000 people to make over 20
acrylates
vinyl chloride
million tonnes per annum.
The washing-up bowl is plastic too but the detergent you put in it belongs to another branch of
the chemical industry—companies like Unilever (Britain) or Procter and Gamble (USA) which
produce soap, detergent, cleaners, bleaches,
Ingredients
polishes, and all the many essentials for the
aqua, palmitic acid,
modern home. These products may be lemon
triethanolamine,
and lavender scented but they too mostly come
glycereth-26, isopentane,
from the oil industry. Nowadays, most pro-
oleamide-DEA, oleth-2,
stearic acid, isobutane,
ducts of this kind tell us, after a fashion, what is in
PEG-14M, parfum,
them. Try this example—a well known brand of
allantoin,
shaving gel along with the list of contents on the
hydroxyethyl-cellulose,
container:
hydroxypropyl-cellulose,
PEG-150 distearate,
Does any of this make any sense?
CI 42053, CI 47005

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Organic chemistry and industry
7
It doesn’t all make sense to us, but here is a possible interpretation. We certainly hope the book
will set you on the path of understanding the sense (and the nonsense!) of this sort of thing.
Ingredient
Chemical meaning
Purpose
aqua
water
solvent
palmitic acid
CH (CH )
CO H
acid, emulsi?er
3
2 14
2
triethanolamine
N(CH CH OH)
base
2
2
3
glycereth-26
glyceryl(OCH CH )
OH
surfactant
2
2 26
isopentane
(CH ) CHCH CH
propellant
3 2
2
3
oleamide-DEA
CH (CH ) CH=CH(CH ) CONEt
3
2 7
2 7
2
oleth-2
Oleyl(OCH CH ) OH
surfactant
2
2 2
stearic acid
CH (CH )
CO H
acid, emulsi?er
3
2 16
2
isobutane
(CH ) CHCH
propellant
3 2
3
PEG-14M
polyoxyethylene glycol ester
surfactant
parfum
perfume
allantoin
H
promotes healing in
H
N
2N
case you cut
NH
yourself while shaving
O
O
N
allantoin
H
hydroxyethyl-cellulose
cellulose ?bre from wood pulp
gives body
with –OCH CH OH groups added
2
2
hydroxypropyl-cellulose
cellulose ?bre from wood pulp
gives body
with –OCH CH(OH)CH groups added
2
3
PEG-150 distearate
polyoxyethylene glycol diester
surfactant
CI 42053
Fast Green FCF (see box)
green dye
CI 47005
Quinoline Yellow (see box)
yellow dye
The structures of two dyes
Fast Green FCF and Quinoline Yellow are colours permitted to be used in foods and cosmetics and have the structures
shown here. Quinoline Yellow is a mixture of isomeric sulfonic acids in the two rings shown.
Et
Et
O
N
N
OO2S
SO2O
N
2Na
OH
SO2O
SO2OH
HOO2S
Fast Green FCF
Quinoline Yellow
OH
The particular acids, bases, surfactants, and so on are chosen to blend together in a smooth emul-
sion when propelled from the can. The result should feel, smell, and look attractive and a greenish
colour is considered clean and antiseptic by the customer. What the can actually says is this:
‘Superior lubricants within the gel prepare the skin for an exceptionally close, comfortable and effec-
tive shave. It contains added moisturisers to help protect the skin from razor burn. Lightly
fragranced.’

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8
1 . What is organic chemistry?
CN
Another oil-derived class of organic chemical business includes adhesives, sealants, coatings, and
so on, with companies like Ciba–Geigy, Dow, Monsanto, and Laporte in the lead. Nowadays aircraft
O
CH3
are glued together with epoxy-resins and you can glue almost anything with ‘Superglue’ a polymer of
methyl cyanoacrylate.
O
Superglue bonds things together
There is a big market for intense colours for dyeing cloth, colouring plastic and paper, painting
when this small molecule
walls, and so on. This is the dyestuffs and pigments industry and leaders here are companies like ICI
joins up with hundreds of its fellows
in a polymerization reaction
and Akzo Nobel. ICI have a large stake in this aspect of the business, their paints turnover alone
being £2 003 000 000 in 1995.
í
The most famous dyestuff is probably indigo, an ancient dye that used to be isolated from plants
The formation of polymers is discussed
but is now made chemically. It is the colour of blue jeans. More modern dyestuffs can be represented
in Chapter 52.
by ICI’s benzodifuranones, which give fashionable red colours to synthetic fabrics like polyesters.
We see one type of pigment around us all the time in the form of the colours on plastic bags.
Among the best compounds for these are the metal complexes called phthalocyanines. Changing the
metal (Cu and Fe are popular) at the centre and the halogens round the edge of these molecules
changes the colour but blues and green predominate. The metal atom is not necessary for intense
pigment colours—one new class of intense ‘high performance’ pigments in the orange–red range are
the DPP (1,4-diketopyrrolo[3,4-c]pyrroles) series developed by Ciba–Geigy. Pigment Red 254 is
used in paints and plastics.
OR
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
N
O
Cl
Cl
O
O
N
N
NH
O
HN
O
O
N
Cu
N
NH
N
N
O
O
HN
Cl
N
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
Cl
OR
Cl
Cl
Cl
ICI’s Dispersol
indigo
benzodifuranone
ICI’s Monastral Green GNA
Ciba Geigy’s Pigment Red 254
the colour of blue jeans
red dyes for polyester
a good green for plastic objects
an intense DPP pigment
Colour photography starts with inorganic silver halides but they are carried on organic gelatin.
í
Light acts on silver halides to give silver atoms that form the photographic image, but only in black
You can read in Chapter 7 why some
compounds are coloured and others
and white. The colour in ?lms like Kodachrome then comes from the coupling of two colourless
not.
organic compounds. One, usually an aromatic amine, is oxidized and couples with the other to give a
coloured compound.
H
R
N
NH
NH
2
N
OPh
R
N
light, silver
HN
N
OPh
O
photographic
SO2O Na
developer
O
Na
SO2O
NEt
NEt
2
2
colourless
magenta pigment from two
colourless cyclic amide
aromatic amine
NEt2
colourless compounds

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Organic chemistry and industry
9
That brings us to ?avours and fragrances. Companies like International Flavours and Fragrances
O
(USA) or Givaudan–Roure (Swiss) produce very big ranges of ?ne chemicals for the perfume, cos-
metic, and food industries. Many of these will come from oil but others come from plant sources. A
typical perfume will contain 5–10% fragrances in an ethanol/water (about 90:10) mixture. So the
cis-jasmone
the main compound
perfumery industry needs a very large amount of ethanol and, you might think, not much perfumery
in jasmine perfume
material. In fact, important fragrances like jasmine are produced on a >10 000 tonnes per annum
scale. The cost of a pure perfume ingredient like cis-jasmone, the main ingredient of jasmine, may be
several hundred pounds, dollars, or euros per gram.
The world of perfumery
Perfume chemists use extraordinary language to describe
achieve the required effect, the perfumer blended
their achievements: ‘Paco Rabanne pour homme was
herbaceous oils with woody accords and the synthetic
created to reproduce the effect of a summer walk in the
aroma chemical dimethylheptanol which has a
open air among the hills of Provence: the smell of herbs,
penetrating but inde?nable freshness associated with
rosemary and thyme, and sparkling freshness with cool
open air or freshly washed linen’. (J. Ayres, Chemistry and
sea breezes mingling with warm soft Alpine air. To
Industry, 1988, 579)
Chemists produce synthetic ?avourings such as ‘smoky bacon’ and even ‘chocolate’. Meaty
?avours come from simple heterocycles such as alkyl pyrazines (present in coffee as well as roast
meat) and furonol, originally found in pineapples. Compounds such as corylone and maltol give
caramel and meaty ?avours. Mixtures of these and other synthetic compounds can be ‘tuned’ to taste
like many roasted foods from fresh bread to coffee and barbecued meat.
O
N
HO
O
HO
O
HO
N
O
O
an alkyl pyrazine
corylone
maltol
from coffee and
furonol
caramel
E-636 for cakes
roast meat
roast meat
roasted taste
and biscuits
Some ?avouring compounds are also perfumes and may also be used as an intermediate in
making other compounds. Two such large-scale ?avouring compounds are vanillin (vanilla ?avour
as in ice cream) and menthol (mint ?avour) both manufactured on a large scale and with many
uses.
O
OH
vanillin
menthol
CH
found in vanilla pods;
3O
extracted from mint;
H
manufactured
25% of the world’s supply
on a large scale
manufactured
HO
Food chemistry includes much larger-scale items than ?avours. Sweeteners such as sugar itself are
isolated from plants on an enormous scale. Sugar’s structure appeared a few pages back. Other
sweeteners such as saccharin (discovered in 1879!) and aspartame (1965) are made on a sizeable
scale. Aspartame is a compound of two of the natural amino acids present in all living things and is
made by Monsanto on a large scale (over 10 000 tonnes per annum).
methyl ester of
phenylalanine
CO2H
CO
O
2H
H
O
H
N
is made from
N
H2N
OCH3
two amino acids –
H2N
OCH3
O
O
aspartame (‘NutraSweet’)
aspartic
acid
200 × sweeter than sugar

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10
1 . What is organic chemistry?
The pharmaceutical businesses produce drugs and medicinal products of many kinds. One of the
great revolutions of modern life has been the expectation that humans will survive diseases because
of a treatment designed to deal speci?cally with that disease. The most successful drug ever is raniti-
dine (Zantac), the Glaxo–Wellcome ulcer treatment, and one of the fastest-growing is P?zer’s silde-
na?l (Viagra). ‘Success’ refers both to human health and to pro?t!
You will know people (probably older men) who are ‘on ?-blockers’. These are com-
pounds designed to block the effects of adrenaline (epinephrine) on the heart and hence to
prevent heart disease. One of the best is Zeneca’s tenormin. Preventing high blood pressure also pre-
vents heart disease and certain speci?c enzyme inhibitors (called ‘ACE-inhibitors’) such as
Squibb’s captopril work in this way. These are drugs that imitate substances naturally present in the
body.
The treatment of infectious diseases relies on antibiotics such as the penicillins to prevent bacteria
from multiplying. One of the most successful of these is Smith Kline Beecham’s amoxycillin. The
four-membered ring at the heart of the molecule is the ‘?-lactam’.
EtO
Me
NO2
N
N
N
Me2N
S
S
O
N
NHMe
N
H
NH
O O
N
Glaxo-Wellcome’s ranitidine
Me
the most successful drug to date
OO
Pfizer’s sildenafil (Viagra)
Pfizer’s sildenafil (Viagra)
world wide sales peaked >£1,000,000,000 per annum
three million satisfied customers in 1998
three million satisfied customers in 1998
NH
OH
2
H
H
H
H
O
N
N
HS
N
S
O
N
O
CO2H
HO
O
Zeneca’s tenormin
Squibb’s captopril
CO2H
cardioselective ?-blocker
specific enzyme inhibitor
SmithKline Beecham’s amoxycillin
for treatment and prevention
for treatment and
?-lactam antibiotic
of heart disease
prevention of hypertension
for treatment of bacterial infections
We cannot maintain our present high density of population in the developed world, nor deal with
malnutrition in the developing world unless we preserve our food supply from attacks by insects and
fungi and from competition by weeds. The world market for agrochemicals is over £10 000 000 000
per annum divided roughly equally between herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides.
At the moment we hold our own by the use of agrochemicals: companies such as Rhône-
Poulenc, Zeneca, BASF, Schering–Plough, and Dow produce compounds of remarkable and speci?c
activity. The most famous modern insecticides are modelled on the natural pyrethrins, stabilized
against degradation by sunlight by chemical modi?cation (see coloured portions of decamethrin)
and targeted to speci?c insects on speci?c crops in cooperation with biologists. Decamethrin has a
safety factor of >10#000 for mustard beetles over mammals, can be applied at only 10 grams per
hectare (about one level tablespoon per football pitch), and leaves no signi?cant environmental
residue.
O
Br
O
O
O
Br
O
O
O
CN
a natural pyrethin
decamethrin
from pyrethrum - daisy-like flowers from East Africa
a modified pyrethrin - more active and stable in sunlight

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