ammoniumcianátból

Ammonium cyanate, with the chemical formula NH4OCN, is an inorganic salt. It is composed of the ammonium cation (NH4+) and the cyanate anion (OCN-). This compound is a white crystalline solid. Historically, it gained significant importance as the precursor to urea, the first organic compound to be synthesized from inorganic starting materials. In 1828, Friedrich Wöhler heated ammonium cyanate in his laboratory and produced urea, a landmark achievement in the field of organic chemistry. This experiment helped to disprove the vitalism theory, which proposed that organic compounds could only be produced by living organisms. Ammonium cyanate itself is relatively unstable and readily decomposes upon heating. Its primary application is in the synthesis of urea, which is widely used as a fertilizer and in the production of plastics and other chemicals. It can also be prepared by reacting ammonia with cyanic acid or by heating ammonium carbonate or ammonium thiocyanate. The reaction to form urea from ammonium cyanate is an isomerization, where the atoms rearrange to form a different molecule.