Organic chemistry is the chemisty of carbon compounds.

The first organic chemistry synthesis was conducted accidentally by Wöhler in 1828, about 40 years before the periodic table. Wohler was studying the organic compound silver cyanate (AgOCN) and an isomeric ion fulminate (CNO-). At that time, people were just beginning to realize that molecules were made of atoms in stoichiometric ratios, and Wohler was trying to understand the difference between silver fulminate, which is highly explosive (mercury fulminate, a similar compound, made a cameo in Breaking Bad) and silver cyanate, which is not explosive. He mixed silver cyanate with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) and heated it, expecting to obtain NH4OCN, but instead obtained AgCl + CH4N2O - the latter being actually CO(NH2)2 or urea. This showed that urea, which was then known only as an excreted metabolite of animals, could be created synthetically.

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