inorganic chemistry

inorganic chemistry, field of science concerned with the composition, properties, and structure of chemical elements and compounds that contain little or no carbon. It is distinguished from organic chemistry, which studies compounds that contain carbon atoms.

Modern chemistry, which dates more or less from the acceptance of the law of conservation of mass in the late 18th century, focused initially on those substances that were not associated with living organisms. Study of such substances, which normally have little or no carbon, constitutes the discipline of inorganic chemistry. Early work sought to identify the simple substances—namely, the elements—that are the constituents of all more complex substances. Some elements, such as gold and carbon, have been known since antiquity, and many others were discovered and studied throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today 118 are known.

The crystalline form of salt, known as halite, consists of intermingled sodium and chlorine atoms, one sodium atom for each one of chlorine. Such a compound, formed solely by the combination of two elements, is known as a binary compound. Binary compounds are very common in inorganic chemistry, and they exhibit little structural variety. For this reason, the number of inorganic compounds is limited in spite of the large number of elements that may react with each other. If three or more elements are combined in a substance, the structural possibilities become greater.

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After a period of quiescence in the early part of the 20th century, inorganic chemistry again became an exciting area of research. For example, compounds of boron and hydrogen, known as boranes, have unique structural features that forced a change in thinking about the architecture of inorganic molecules. Some inorganic substances have structural features long believed to occur only in carbon compounds, and a few inorganic polymers have even been produced. Ceramics are materials composed of inorganic elements combined with oxygen. For centuries ceramic objects have been made by strongly heating a vessel formed from a paste of powdered minerals. Although ceramics are quite hard and stable at very high temperatures, they are usually brittle. Currently, new ceramics strong enough to be used as turbine blades in jet engines are being manufactured. In 1987 a ceramic containing yttrium, barium, copper, and oxygen, with the approximate formula YBa₂Cu₃O₇, was found to be a superconductor at a temperature of about 100 Kelvin. A superconductor offers no resistance to the passage of an electrical current, and this new type of ceramic could very well find wide use in electrical and magnetic applications. A superconducting ceramic is so simple to make that it can be prepared in a high school laboratory. Its discovery illustrates the unpredictability of chemistry, for fundamental discoveries can still be made with simple equipment and inexpensive materials.

Many of the most interesting developments in inorganic chemistry bridge the gap with other disciplines. Organometallic chemistry investigates compounds that contain inorganic elements combined with carbon-rich units. Many organometallic compounds play an important role in industrial chemistry as catalysts, which are substances that are able to accelerate the rate of a reaction even when present in only very small amounts. Some success has been achieved in the use of such catalysts for converting natural gas to related but more useful chemical substances. Chemists also have created large inorganic molecules that contain a core of metal atoms, such as platinum, surrounded by a shell of different chemical units. Some of these compounds, referred to as metal clusters, have characteristics of metals, while others react in ways similar to biologic systems. Trace amounts of metals in biologic systems are essential for processes such as respiration, nerve function, and cell metabolism. Processes of this kind form the object of study of bioinorganic chemistry. Although organic molecules were once thought to be the distinguishing chemical feature of living creatures, it is now known that inorganic chemistry plays a vital role as well.