Introduction

Carbon occupies a special place in chemistry. As you saw in the previous unit, it shows catenation — the ability to link with other carbon atoms through strong covalent bonds — and it also bonds readily with hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and the halogens. The enormous family of compounds this produces is studied as its own branch of the subject: organic chemistry.

This unit lays the foundation for that study. It brings together the basic principles — why carbon is tetravalent and what shapes its molecules take, how structures are written on paper, how the millions of organic compounds are classified and named systematically, and how electronic effects decide the way organic molecules react — along with the practical techniques of purification, qualitative detection and quantitative estimation that every organic chemist depends on.