Organophosphorus

Organophosphorus

Organophosphorus compounds are degradable organic compounds containing carbon–phosphorus bonds (thus excluding phosphate and phosphite esters, which lack this kind of bonding), used primarily in pest control as an alternative to chlorinated hydrocarbons that persist in the environment. Organophosphorus chemistry is the corresponding science of the properties and reactivity of organophosphorus compounds. Phosphorus shares group 5 in the periodic table with nitrogen and phosphorus compounds and nitrogen compounds are somewhat related.

The definition of organophosphorus compounds is variable, which can lead to confusion. In industrial and environmental chemistry, an organophosphorus compound need contain only an organic substituent, but need not have a direct P-C bond. Thus most pesticides, e.g., malathion, are often included in this class of compounds.

Phosphorus can adopt a variety of oxidation states, and it is general to classify organophosphorus compounds based on their being derivatives of phosphorus(V) vs phosphorus(III), which are the predominant classes of compounds. In a descriptive but only intermittently used nomenclature, phosphorus compounds are identified by their coordination number δ and their valency λ. In this system, a phosphine is a δ3λ3 compound.