Inorganic compound

An inorganic compound is a chemical compound not containing carbon and hydrogen atoms bonded to each other.

Although the number of inorganic compounds is huge, it is indeed overshadowed by the number of organic compounds, which comprise the vast majority of all compounds known.

Carbon compounds are sometimes erroneously considered to be all organic; many compounds that contain carbon, however, are defined as strictly inorganic: carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, carbonates, to name but a few. All these compounds have no hydrogen atoms bonded to the carbon.

In the past it was believed that organic compounds are found only in organisms, and this was how the initial distinction between the two groups had been made. Today, however, we know that this is far from true: thousands of organic compounds were synthetically formed; they don't come from and don't exist in organisms: drugs and plastics, for example. At the same time, many inorganic compounds exist in organisms, and are essential to life: sodium chloride (common salt), carbonic acid, phosphate ions and many more. The study of metal compounds in living systems is called bioinorganic chemistry.

The field within which inorganic compounds are researched is called inorganic chemistry.

See also

• List of inorganic compounds
• Inorganic compounds by element

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