inorganics

Inorganics, in the context of chemistry, refers to the study of inorganic compounds—substances that are not primarily built from carbon-hydrogen frameworks. The field includes metals and their alloys, minerals, salts, oxides, sulfides, halides, nitrides, and ceramics. Although inorganic chemistry is commonly contrasted with organic chemistry, many compounds that contain carbon, such as carbonates, cyanides, and carbon oxides, are classified as inorganic.

Key areas include crystallography, coordination chemistry, solid-state chemistry, catalysis, and bioinorganic chemistry, which examines the role of metal centers in biological systems. Techniques used in the field include X-ray crystallography, spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and computational methods.

Applications of inorganic chemistry span catalysts for industrial synthesis, electronic and optical materials (semiconductors, ceramic insulators, and pigments), energy storage and conversion (batteries, fuel cells, superconductors), and corrosion-resistant coatings. Common examples of inorganic substances are sodium chloride, silicon dioxide (quartz), aluminum oxide, iron oxides, copper sulfate, titanium dioxide, and lithium cobalt oxide used in batteries.

Historically, inorganic chemistry emerged from mineralogy and metallurgy and expanded with developments in qualitative and quantitative analysis, synthetic methods, and solid-state chemistry. The field intersects with organometallic chemistry and materials science, and it plays a central role in industry, environmental science, and technology.