Alcohol and Ether Functional Groups
What are the two most common elements in organic compounds? Answer
For organic chemists the idea of a functional group arose as
a way to organize compounds containing elements other than carbon
and hydrogen. For example, when organic chemists synthesized
compounds they are curious what elements are in the compounds
they have made. So they would perform something called an
elemental analysis to find what elements were in the compound.
Organic chemist found a series of compounds containing
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. So the chemists were curious how did
the oxygen bond with carbon and hydrogen in these compounds. So
the chemist used tools to study these compounds and discovered
certain patterns in the way oxygen interacted with carbon.
We have some knowledge about oxygen because we studied Lewis
structure of covalent compounds. We know the most important
compound...water, H2O has two O-H bonds. Oxygen likes
to form two bonds. It has six valence electrons and only needs
two more electrons to have eight. To get two more electrons is
generally forms two bonds.
Knowing that oxygen likes to form two bonds and that carbon
likes to form four bonds and that hydrogen likes to form one
bond, take a moment and draw two Lewis structures (isomers) given
the formula C2H6O. Answer