SOLVENTS: From Past to Present

Technological advancements in organic chemistry cannot be imagined without solvents, an essential evil due to well-recognized safety, health, and environmental risks and yet an integral part of the value chain for almost all industrially manufactured products intended for human use. A solvent serves as an essential liquid medium for different molecules to interact and react, generating products totally different from the original reactants. Reminiscences reveal water to be the first solvent used in the art of organic chemistry. This Viewpoint attempts to capture anecdotal theories and evidence on the use of this "magic liquid" and the progressive adoption of alternative liquid solvents, which have played a pivotal role in the evolution of synthetic organic chemistry. Synthetic organic chemistry, in turn, has sought to compete with nature in mimicking complex natural product syntheses in the laboratory on miniscule time scales compared with millions of years of evolutionary processes.