Mellitic Anhydride (Exotic oxide, mineral, or organic chemical?) : Molecule of the Day

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Mellitic Anhydride (Exotic oxide, mineral, or organic chemical?)

Category: Inorganic
Posted on: August 30, 2007 8:06 PM, by Molecule of the Day

Mellitic anhydride is unusual - as mentioned in the argument over urea, it seems like it should be organic - it's a benzene derivative - but there's no hydrogen. This causes it to fail some peoples' tests for whether something's organic.

#
# InChI: InChI=1/C12O9/c13-7-1-2(8(14)19-7)4-6(12(18)21-11(4)17)5-3(1)9(15)20-10(5)16

More bafflingly, mellitic acid's aluminum salt is a mineral! Mellite sure looks like a rock, huh?

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Comments

The trianhydride of ethanehexacarboxylic acid is just as cute. An organic compound must meet two criteria:

1) It must be a compound - at least one more element besides carbon must be present in stoichiometric proportion. Graphite, diamond, buckeyballs, polycarbyne... are inorganic.

2) It must contain at least one carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen bond. Formaldehyde, formic acid, chloroform, hexachloroethane, and CL-20 are organic. Carbonic acid, carbon tet, urea, melamine, and cyanuric acid are inorganic.

Posted by: Uncle Al | September 1, 2007 5:58 PM

Hmm. By the definition given above, then, HCN is organic, but its salts aren't?

Posted by: nitroglycol | January 30, 2009 3:20 PM