how do chemical engineers take natural fragrances and derive their "pattern" so to speak?

Question

For example, the smell of lilacs can be copied chemically, and will be similar to the real thing (though not perfect). But how do they get the "code" of the lilac's smell? What's the "DNA" of a fragrance (as an analogy)?

Answer 1

The smell is from a molecule, or molecules, which the flower produces. Chemists can *synthesize* those molecules and get the *synthetic* smell.

The code determination is a whole branch of chemistry called "analytical chemistry." There are a whole variety of techniques that are used, such as Infra-red spectroscopy (IR), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), different types of chromatography, etc. Basically, each molecule has its own fingerprint, which can be found using one or more analytical techniques.

Once the molecule is found, then synthetic chemists have to synthesize it.

Answer 2

If you take organic chemistry, you learn that there are such chemicals known as esters. Esters account for the odours of fruits and flowers. An ester is made up of carbon and oxygen. Therefore, scientists can synthesize them in a laboratory through simple chemical reactions known as esterfication. Esterfication is when an alcohol reacts with a carboxylic acid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboxylic_acid and, http://www.chemguide.co.uk/organicprops/acids/background.html) to produe an ester.

Answer 3

far far too complicated to be answered on this blog. If you are really interested then Google for compendium of answers.