Chemical Process

All living organisms participate in the nitrogen cycle, which encompasses the process and chemical reaction involved in producing organic nitrogen from inorganic nitrogen and subsequently breaking down organic nitrogen back to the inorganic form. Ammonification The cycle begins to form ammonia, NH3: the electrical energy of lightning drives the reaction. Ammonia combines with rain and becomes available to green plants as dilute nitric acid, HNO3. Ammonia is also derived from the breakdown of proteins that constitute plant and animal cells. This chemical , combined with the products of photosynthesis, is used to form amino acids, which are the basic components of plant proteins. Animals eat the plant proteins, break them down into amino acids during the process of digestion, and recombine them to form their own particular forms of protein in order to build tissues and organs of their bodies. Denitrification Certain soil bacteria convert nitrogen containing compounds into ammonia a...

The name organic chemistry originated at the beginning of the 19th century, when scientists wishes to differentiate between those substances derived from plant and animal (organic) materials. It was believed that organic substances had special qualities and could be created only in the presence of the “vital force” found in living organisms. Even though the vital force theory was eventually disproved, the classification of chemical substances as organic or inorganic has continued to present. The modern usage of “organic chemistry” refers to the chemistry of compounds containing carbon . These organic substances are generally characterized by chains of connected carbon atoms. Millions of such organic compounds are known. Many of these are “natural products,” or compounds found in nature. The study of the large organic molecules found in living systems and their reactions, which make up the life processes, has come to be called biochemistry. A large number of the known organic chemi...