Distinguish between organic and inorganic molecules?

1 Answer
Jan 31, 2018

See the explanation below.

Explanation:

Organic molecules are molecules that contain carbon-hydrogen bonds. Almost all organic molecules are hydrocarbons. They are called organic because they are essential for life to exist.

Some examples of organic molecules include:

Methane (CH_4)(CH4)

Glucose (C_6H_12O_6)(C6H12O6)

Ethanol (C_2H_5OH)(C2H5OH) or (C_2H_6O)(C2H6O)

Here is a picture of some more:

![http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/09/01/benzene-derivatives-in-organic-chemistry/](useruploads.socratic.org)

As you can see here, all of them contain carbon and hydrogen in their chemical structure.

I think you can guess then what are inorganic molecules. Well, they are molecules without carbon-hydrogen bonds. While they still can contain carbon compounds, such as (CO_2)(CO2), or hydrogen compounds, such as (H_2O)(H2O), they are not allowed to have carbon-hydrogen bonds, so molecules like (C_2H_6)(C2H6) are not considered inorganic.

However, some are still essential for life, such as

Water (H_2O)(H2O)

Oxygen gas (O_2)(O2)

But mainly, some can be quite common compounds, with examples like

Rust (Fe_2O_3*nH_2O)(Fe2O3nH2O)

Table salt (NaCl)(NaCl)

Hydrochloric acid (HCl)(HCl)

Here are pictures of the compounds I've mentioned above:

![http://www.fieldstation.net/tag/rust/](useruploads.socratic.org) Rust

![https://www.flickr.com/photos/11939863@N08/3793288383/in/photostream/](useruploads.socratic.org) Salt

![https://www.amazon.com/Hydrochloric-Reagent-Grade-Purity-Regia/dp/B00HWFHMP2](useruploads.socratic.org) Hydrochloric acid

I hope my explanation was clear!