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Synthesis Lab Report Examples

Decent Essays

I chose for my enrich topic for this week the subject of the "Synthesis of Urea". I chose this because I like the historical aspect of scientific discoveries. I immediately learned that when you do a Google scholar search for "synthesis of urea" that you get a number of results about modern patents on synthesizing urea. It was sort of difficult to find a historical article on the synthesis or urea in the scientific journal databases. I found a couple of articles from the 1920s that talked about Friedrich Wöhler, the man credited with the first synthesis of urea, "a naturally occurring organic compound from inorganic materials." ("urea". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 26 Oct. …show more content…

In these experiments the synthesis of an organic compound from two inorganic molecules was achieved for the first time. These results weakened significantly the vitalistic hypothesis on the functioning of living cells, although Wöhler, at that time, was more interested in the chemical consequences of isomerism than in the philosophical implications of his finding. However, the chemical synthesis observed by Wöhler does not represent the reaction which is employed in the mammalian liver for urea synthesis. The mechanism of this process was elucidated by the German physician Hans A. Krebs and his medical student Kurt Henseleit in 1932 and was shown to include the ornithine cycle. This 'urea cycle' is only observed in living cells; this apparently vitalistic phenomenon is caused by the compartmentalization of the various enzymatic reactions in mitochondria and cytosol, respectively." (Vitalism and Synthesis of Urea. Kinne-Saffran E, Kinne R, K, H, Am J Nephrol …show more content…

During an attempt to synthesize ammo-nium cyanate, Wöhler (1800–1882) heated a solution of silver cyanate and ammonium chloride. Separately, he also heated lead cya-nate and aqueous ammonia. In both cases, he obtained not the expected product, but urea (Scheme 1). Wöhler’s synthesis showed that inorganic starting materials could be used to synthesize substances previously associated only with living organisms. In other words, chemical synthesis requires no ‘living’ or ‘vital force’ to make biologically active compounds." (The origins of chemical biology, Kim L Morrison & Gregory A Weiss, NATURE CHEMICAL BIOLOGY VOLUME 2 NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2006, p3

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