Chemistry · Ch 13 — Organic Nitrogen Compounds
Introduction
Introduction
Organic compounds containing nitrogen are essential to life. Amines, the organic derivatives of ammonia, play a central role in bioregulation and neurotransmission -- dopamine and histamine are both amines. Pyridoxine (vitamin B6) is an organic nitrogen compound your body needs to keep nerves, skin and red blood cells healthy, and plants synthesise alkaloids and other biologically active amines specifically to protect themselves from being eaten by insects and other animals.
Beyond biology, nitrogen compounds are workhorses of industry: diazonium salts are important intermediates in synthetic organic chemistry, and nitrogen-containing compounds more broadly are key constituents of explosives, drugs, dyes, fuels, polymers and synthetic rubbers.
What this unit sets out to do. By the end of it you should be able to:
- understand isomerism in organic nitro compounds, and describe their preparation and properties;
- classify amines as primary, secondary and tertiary, and describe how they are prepared;
- explain the properties of amines, and distinguish between the three classes;
- describe the preparation of diazonium salts;
- explain the preparation and properties of cyanides.
Donald Cram shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles Pedersen for their work on molecules with highly selective, structure-specific interactions -- founding the field of host-guest chemistry. He built on Pedersen's synthesis of crown ethers, and also gave his name to Cram's rule of asymmetric induction.