« | Main | »
Sunday
Jan292012

Corannulene

"Corannulene is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with chemical formula C20H10.[1] The molecule consists of a cyclopentane ring fused with 5 benzene rings, so another name for it is [5]circulene. It is of scientific interest because it is a geodesic polyarene and can be considered a fragment of buckminsterfullerene. Due to this connection and also its bowl shape, corannulene is also known as a buckybowl. Corannulene exhibits a bowl-to-bowl inversion with an inversion barrier of 10.2 kcal/mol (42.7 kJ/mol) at −64 °C."

"The observed aromaticity for this compound is explained with a so-called annulene-within-an-annulene model. According to this model corannulene is made up of an aromatic 6 electron cyclopentadienyl anion surrounded by an aromatic 14 electron annulenyl cation. This model was suggested by Barth and Lawton in the first synthesis of corannulene in 1966.[3] They also suggested the trivial name 'corannulene', which is derived from the annulene-within-an-annulene model: core + annulene."

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>