Clifford Chiduuro

Organic Chemistry: for Metallurgical Assayers Clifford Chiduuro

Organic compounds belong to different families, though all organic compounds are based on carbon C, hydrogen H, and other elements such as oxygen, nitrogen etc. Most food is chemically organic in nature, apart from some minerals, and many drugs, plastic materials are composed of organic molecules, consequently, organic compounds and organic chemistry is rather important to us. The term organic compound comes from the fact that most of the original organic compounds studied by scientists-chemists came from plants or animals, i.e. of natural origin and contained the 'vital force' of mother nature. Historically, for thousands of years, many organic compounds have been used indirectly in herbal preparations for healing and alleviating symptoms and in food materials such as honey. The module will focus on applications to the metallurgical assaying.