Scope and Methods of Organic Chemistry

The element carbon is present in all these so-called organic compounds, and as a consequence, organic. chemistry may be defined as the chemistry of the carbon compounds. The student is already familiar with the chemistry of carbon in the elementary 

Many compounds of carbon exist which are unlike any known compounds of other elements. This is due to the fact that the carbon atom has the power to unite with itself and form molecules of great complexity. Compounds have been studied which contain over 60 carbon atoms in the molecule. Where so many atoms are present there is, evidently, opportunity for a number of different arrangements of the atoms for example, there are 86 compounds of the formula C10H12O3. This is an added source of complexity, and methods of study must be devised and used 

Many valuable substances which occur in nature have been produced in the laboratory in a similar way. But the chemist has not been content to build up only naturally occurring compounds. Many new substances having valuable properties have been prepared. Synthetic dyes have been made in great variety, and many useful medicinal agents furnished the physician. Thus, synthetic organic chemistry is an important factor in the economics of the world and has become a source of wealth. 

In addition to the applications of organic chemistry from the utilitarian point of view, the study of the compounds of carbon has resulted in the building up of a well developed science, and has increased to a marked degree our knowledge of the transformations in matter. 

What is called the melting point of a particular sample of any substance is the temperature at which the sample begins to 

---

It is often necessary to survey the scope and limitations of a reaction, a synthetic method, a reagent, or a technique to determine whether it may be applied to solving a specific problem. To facilitate access to this information, a number of reference works are available that contain reviews of reactions, reagents, techniques, and methods in organic chemistry these are often serial in nature. 

The control of reactivity to achieve specific syntheses is one of the overarching goals of organic chemistry. In the decade since the publication of the third edition, major advances have been made in the development of efficient new methods, particularly catalytic processes, and in means for control of reaction stereochemistry. For example, the scope and efficiency of palladium- catalyzed cross coupling have been greatly improved by optimization of catalysts by ligand modification. Among the developments in stereocontrol are catalysts for enantioselective reduction of ketones, improved methods for control of the... 

What then, can organic chemistry as a science draw out from quantum chemistry In the search for the answer it is useful to look at the already accumulated experience of the interactions in these closely related areas of chemical science. In the last decades there have evolved various methods for the non-empirical and semi-empirical calculations of structure and reactivity of organic molecules based on quantum mechanics. In numerous cases these calculations turned out to be of extreme usefulness in obtaining quantitative information such as the charge distribution in a molecule, the reaction indices of alternate reaction centers, the energy of stabilization for various structures, the plausible shape of potential energy surfaces for chemical transformations, etc. This list seems to include almost all parameters that are needed for the explanation and prediction of the reactivity of a compound, that is, for solving the main chemical task. Yet there are several intrinsic defaults that impose rather severe limitations on the scope of the reliability of this approach. 

These examples show the value of these highly specific techniques when studying traces of compounds in complex mixtures in the fields of organic chemistry and biochemistry. The diversity of applications of MS/MS makes it an alternative to conventional methods. These techniques are constantly evolving. We will now present several examples of application, by class of compounds, in order to show the scope of possibilities offered by MS/MS. 

---