Researched
Organic Synthesis (Wöhler)
Wöhler makes urea from minerals in 1828, undermining the 'vital force' idea and opening the way to dyes, drugs and plastics.
Open in the interactive tree →Kekulé (1865) explained carbon chains and the benzene ring, and Perkin made the first artificial dye, mauveine, in 1856. The coal-tar dye industry grew into Bayer, BASF and Hoechst, followed by aspirin (1897) and modern drugs. Organic synthesis is still the craft of building molecules atom by atom.
Prerequisites
- Atomic Theory (Dalton)1808
- Research University (Humboldt)1810Liebig's Giessen teaching laboratory trained the organic chemists of Wöhler's era
Unlocks
- Synthetic Dyes (Mauveine)1856
- Dynamite (Nobel)1867
- Enzymes: life without cells1897
- Vitamins and deficiency diseases1747-1912
- Chromatography1903
- Plastics (Bakelite to Nylon)1907-1953
- Salvarsan: the magic bullet1909
- Insulin1921
- Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)1930
- Synthetic pesticides1939
- Chemotherapy1942First chemo drugs (nitrogen mustards) are synthetic organic compounds
- Contraceptive pill1960
- Liquid-Crystal Display1971
- MOFs: Chemistry Nobel 20252025
- Synthetic genomes2025Synthetic DNA is made by chemical synthesis, a branch of organic chemistry