After a period of quiescence in the early part of the 20th century, inorganic

chemistry has again become an exciting area of research. 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. There is hope that ceramics will one day
replace steel in components of internal-combustion engines. 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 K. 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.
Organic chemistry

Organic compounds are based on the chemistry of carbon. Carbon is unique in the
variety and extent of structures that can result from the three-dimensional
connections of its atoms. The process of photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide and
water to oxygen and compounds known as carbohydrates. Both cellulose, the substance
that gives structural rigidity to plants, and starch, the energy storage product of
plants, are polymeric carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates produced by
photosynthesis form the raw material for the myriad organic compounds found in the
plant and animal kingdoms. When combined with variable amounts of hydrogen, oxygen,
nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and other elements, the structural possibilities of
carbon compounds become limitless, and their number far exceeds the total of all
nonorganic compounds. A major focus of organic chemistry is the isolation,
purification, and structural study of these naturally occurring substances. Many
natural products are simple molecules. Examples include formic acid (HCO2H) in
ants, ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH) in fermenting fruit, and oxalic acid (C2H2O4) in
rhubarb leaves. Other natural products, such as penicillin, vitamin B12, proteins,
and nucleic acids, are exceedingly complex. The isolation of pure natural products
from their host organism is made difficult by the low concentrations in which they
may be present. Once they are isolated in pure form, however, modern instrumental
techniques can reveal structural details for amounts weighing as little as one-
millionth of a gram. The correlation of the physical and chemical properties of
compounds with their structural features is the domain of physical organic
chemistry. Once the properties endowed upon a substance by specific structural
units termed functional groups are known, it becomes possible to design novel
molecules that may exhibit desired properties. The preparation, under controlled
laboratory conditions, of specific compounds is known as synthetic chemistry. Some
products are easier to synthesize than to collect and purify from their natural
sources. Tons of vitamin C, for example, are synthesized annually. Many synthetic
substances have novel properties that make them especially useful. Plastics are a
prime example, as are many drugs and agricultural chemicals. A continuing challenge
for synthetic chemists is the structural complexity of most organic substances. To
synthesize a desired substance, the atoms must be pieced together in the correct
order and with the proper three-dimensional relationships. Just as a given pile of
lumber and bricks can be assembled in many ways to build houses of several
different designs, so too can a fixed number of atoms be connected together in
various ways to give different molecules. Only one structural arrangement out of
the many possibilities will be identical with a