I was looking at a wikipedia page about a particular chemical and it said something to the effect of “this was originally extracted from a fungus, but can now be made synthetically”. What does that actually mean? I can conceptualise the process of extracting chemicals from organic materials, but when something is created synthetically the chemists do…what exactly?
In: Chemistry
Normally if something is made by a natural process, we gather it up and purify it for use.
Sometimes we can imitate the natural process in the lab, like banana flavor. You can either follow the biological process in the lab, or come up with a new way of doing it that’s quicker or cheaper. For instance, they used to get insulin from sheep, I think, but they figured out how to make it without getting the sheep involved.
Latest Answers