Mabus
Wiki Master
Posts: 238
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Energetic
|
|
Is HCN organic or inorganic?
This has been bothering me for some time.
In many places I've seen HCN being called organic, in others inorganic.
Is HCN organic or inorganic?
|
|
|
aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
Inorganic.
No C-C bond.
Organic.
Has C in it.
|
|
|
diggafromdover
Hazard to Self
Posts: 84
Registered: 24-2-2015
Location: New Hampshire
Member Is Offline
Mood: Inconherent
|
|
Methane is organic, yet it has no C-C bond.
Acetonitrile is organic, and it has both C-H and C-CN bonds
So does HCN
That mitigates for HCN being organic.
[Edited on 14-7-2015 by diggafromdover]
|
|
|
Mabus
Wiki Master
Posts: 238
Registered: 3-11-2013
Member Is Offline
Mood: Energetic
|
|
Don't forget formic acid, formaldehyde, halomethanes.
Another thing: pure HCN has H-C bond, but dissociates in water to H+ and CN-.
How does that affect its "organic-ness"?
|
|
|
Texium
Administrator
Posts: 4581
Registered: 11-1-2014
Location: Salt Lake City
Member Is Online
Mood: PhD candidate!
|
|
Really the whole organic/inorganic thing is blurred, and in some cases the distinction is based solely on historical tradition. Back in the olden days
before the famous synthesis of urea, it was thought that organic compounds (at that time the definition was anything made by living organisms) could
not be synthesized from inorganic substances. Thus, compounds such as carbonates and cyanides that had been obtained from mineral sources were still
considered inorganic, despite containing carbon, and to this day, are still usually considered to be.
|
|
|
aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
It's an OrganicIn, aka a Chemical.
Bish, bosh. Sorted.
Edit:
It really does not matter how you classify it.
HCN is a chemical, and behaves as it does.
In the end, it's classification does not affect it's reactions nor it's other properties.
Some things never fit nicely into discrete compartments.
IOC IC EC all are just labels for the innocent.
[Edited on 14-7-2015 by aga]
|
|
|
szuko03
Hazard to Others
Posts: 188
Registered: 3-4-2015
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
^ I agree with that for the most part. Classifying things is good for organization I suppose but its not really going to help you understand it. But
they do make you do it in Chem classes. Its silly but we would get a list of compounds and be told to classify them as organic or inorganic.
Also classifying allows for walls to be formed and those walls become hard to break. The biggest example of this is medical marijuana because the wall
of "illegal drug" was built it is hard to dismantle that wall of thought. paradigm shifts are hard even when they make complete sense.
Chemistry is a natural drive, not an interest.
|
|
|
phlogiston
International Hazard
Posts: 1379
Registered: 26-4-2008
Location: Neon Thorium Erbium Lanthanum Neodymium Sulphur
Member Is Offline
Mood: pyrophoric
|
|
If you did not use any pesticides, fertilizers, hormones or antibiotics in manufacturing it, your HCN is organic.
-----
"If a rocket goes up, who cares where it comes down, that's not my concern said Wernher von Braun" - Tom Lehrer |
|
|
Metacelsus
International Hazard
Posts: 2539
Registered: 26-12-2012
Location: Boston, MA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Double, double, toil and trouble
|
|
Made from organic amygdalin? 
"Organic" in the food sense seems silly to me. I support environmentally responsible farming practices, but precluding nearly all of modern
biotechnology really isn't necessary. Using fertilizer is fine; just don't use so much that the crops don't absorb it all so it washes into the lake,
causing an algae bloom.
[Edited on 16-7-2015 by Cheddite Cheese]
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
