In organic chemistry, a total synthesis is, in principle, the complete chemical synthesis of complex organic molecules from simpler pieces, usually without the aid of biological processes. In practice, these simpler pieces are commercially available in bulk and semi-bulk quantities, and are often petrochemical precursors. Sometimes bulk natural products (e.g. sugars) are used as starting materials and it is assumed that these have or can be synthesised from their constituent elements. The target molecules can be natural products (biomolecules), medicinally important active ingredients, or organic compounds of theoretical interest in chemistry or biology. A new route for synthesis is developed in the course of the investigation, and the route may be the first one to be developed for the substance.
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Famous quotes containing the words total and/or synthesis:
“Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“It is in this impossibility of attaining to a synthesis of the inner life and the outward that the inferiority of the biographer to the novelist lies. The biographer quite clearly sees Peel, say, seated on his bench while his opponents overwhelm him with perhaps undeserved censure. He sees him motionless, miserable, his head bent on his breast. He asks himself: “What is he thinking?” and he knows nothing.”
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967)