Platonic Hydrocarbons
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Platonic Hydrocarbons
In organic chemistry, a Platonic hydrocarbon is a hydrocarbon (molecule) whose structure matches one of the five Platonic solids, with carbon atoms replacing its vertices, carbon–carbon bonds replacing its edges, and hydrogen atoms as needed. Not all Platonic solids have molecular hydrocarbon counterparts; those that do are the tetrahedron (tetrahedrane), the cube (cubane), and the dodecahedron (dodecahedrane). Tetrahedrane Tetrahedrane (C4H4) is a hypothetical compound. It has not yet been synthesized without substituents, but it is predicted to be kinetically stable in spite of its angle strain. Some stable derivatives, including tetra( ''tert''-butyl)tetrahedrane (a hydrocarbon) and tetra(trimethylsilyl)tetrahedrane, have been produced. Cubane Cubane (C8H8) has been synthesized. Although it has high angle strain, cubane is kinetically stable, due to a lack of readily available decomposition paths. Octahedrane Angle strain would make an octahedron highly unstable due to ...
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Platonic Hydrocarbons Vs Platonic Solids
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It may also refer to: * Platonic love, a relationship that is not sexual in nature * Platonic forms, or the theory of forms, Plato's model of existence * Platonic idealism * Platonic solid, any of the five convex regular polyhedra * Platonic crystal, a periodic structure designed to guide wave energy through thin plates * Platonism, the philosophy of Plato (Classical period) * Middle Platonism, a later philosophy derived from that of Plato (1st century BC to 3rd century AD) * Neoplatonism, a philosophic school of Late Antiquity deriving from Plato (starting in the 3rd century AD) * Platonism in the Renaissance Platonism, especially in its Neoplatonist form, underwent a revival in the Renaissance as part of a general revival of interest in ...
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Chemical Stability
In chemistry, chemical stability is the thermodynamic stability of a chemical system. Thermodynamic stability occurs when a system is in its lowest energy state, or in chemical equilibrium with its environment. This may be a dynamic equilibrium in which individual atoms or molecules change form, but their overall number in a particular form is conserved. This type of chemical thermodynamic equilibrium will persist indefinitely unless the system is changed. Chemical systems might undergo changes in the phase of matter or a set of chemical reactions. State A is said to be more thermodynamically stable than state B if the Gibbs free energy of the change from A to B is positive. Versus reactivity Thermodynamic stability applies to a particular system. The reactivity of a chemical substance is a description of how it might react across a variety of potential chemical systems and, for a given system, how fast such a reaction could proceed. Chemical substances or states can persis ...
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Boron
Boron is a chemical element with the symbol B and atomic number 5. In its crystalline form it is a brittle, dark, lustrous metalloid; in its amorphous form it is a brown powder. As the lightest element of the ''boron group'' it has three valence electrons for forming covalent bonds, resulting in many compounds such as boric acid, the mineral borax, sodium borate, and the ultra-hard crystals of boron carbide and boron nitride. Boron is synthesized entirely by cosmic ray spallation and supernovae and not by stellar nucleosynthesis, so it is a low-abundance element in the Solar System and in the Crust (geology), Earth's crust. It constitutes about 0.001 percent by weight of Earth's crust. It is concentrated on Earth by the water-solubility of its more common naturally occurring compounds, the borate minerals. These are mined industrially as evaporites, such as borax and kernite. The largest known deposits are in Turkey, the largest producer of boron minerals. Elemental b ...
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Methanium
In chemistry, methanium is a complex positive ion with formula []+, namely a molecule with one carbon atom covalent bond, bonded to three hydrogen atoms and one hydrogen molecule, bearing a +1 electric charge. It is a superacid and one of the onium ions, indeed the simplest carbonium ion. It is highly unstable and highly reactive even upon having a complete octet, thus granting its superacidic properties. Methanium can be produced in the laboratory as a rarefied gas or as a dilute species in superacids. It was prepared for the first time in 1950 and published in 1952 by Victor Talrose and his assistant Anna Konstantinovna Lyubimova. It occurs as an intermediate species in chemical reactions. The methanium ion is named after methane (), by analogy with the derivation of ammonium ion () from ammonia (). Structure Fluxional methanium can be visualised as a carbenium ion with a molecule of hydrogen interacting with the empty orbital in a 3-center-2-electron bond. The bonding ...
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Regular Icosahedron
In geometry, a regular icosahedron ( or ) is a convex polyhedron with 20 faces, 30 edges and 12 vertices. It is one of the five Platonic solids, and the one with the most faces. It has five equilateral triangular faces meeting at each vertex. It is represented by its Schläfli symbol , or sometimes by its vertex figure as 3.3.3.3.3 or 35. It is the dual of the regular dodecahedron, which is represented by , having three pentagonal faces around each vertex. In most contexts, the unqualified use of the word "icosahedron" refers specifically to this figure. A regular icosahedron is a strictly convex deltahedron and a gyroelongated pentagonal bipyramid and a biaugmented pentagonal antiprism in any of six orientations. The name comes . The plural can be either "icosahedrons" or "icosahedra" (). Dimensions If the edge length of a regular icosahedron is a, the radius of a circumscribed sphere (one that touches the icosahedron at all vertices) is r_u = \frac \sqrt = \frac \sqrt = a\ ...
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Dodecahedrane
Dodecahedrane is a chemical compound, a hydrocarbon with formula , whose carbon atoms are arranged as the vertices (corners) of a regular dodecahedron. Each carbon is bound to three neighbouring carbon atoms and to a hydrogen atom. This compound is one of the three possible Platonic hydrocarbons, the other two being cubane and tetrahedrane. Dodecahedrane does not occur in nature and has no significant uses. It was synthesized by Leo Paquette in 1982, primarily for the "aesthetically pleasing symmetry of the dodecahedral framework". For many years, dodecahedrane was the simplest real carbon-based molecule with full icosahedral symmetry. Buckminsterfullerene (), discovered in 1985, also has the same symmetry, but has three times as many carbons and 50% more atoms overall. The synthesis of the C20 fullerene in 2000, from brominated dodecahedrane, may have demoted to second place. Structure The angle between the C-C bonds in each carbon atom is 108°, which is the angle between a ...
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Allotrope
Allotropy or allotropism () is the property of some chemical elements to exist in two or more different forms, in the same physical state, known as allotropes of the elements. Allotropes are different structural modifications of an element: the atoms of the element are bonded together in a different manner. For example, the allotropes of carbon include diamond (the carbon atoms are bonded together to form a cubic lattice of tetrahedra), graphite (the carbon atoms are bonded together in sheets of a hexagonal lattice), graphene (single sheets of graphite), and fullerenes (the carbon atoms are bonded together in spherical, tubular, or ellipsoidal formations). The term ''allotropy'' is used for elements only, not for compounds. The more general term, used for any compound, is polymorphism, although its use is usually restricted to solid materials such as crystals. Allotropy refers only to different forms of an element within the same physical phase (the state of matter, such as ...
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Inverted Tetrahedral Geometry
In a tetrahedral molecular geometry, a central atom is located at the center with four substituents that are located at the corners of a tetrahedron. The bond angles are cos−1(−) = 109.4712206...° ≈ 109.5° when all four substituents are the same, as in methane () as well as its heavier analogues. Methane and other perfectly symmetrical tetrahedral molecules belong to point group Td, but most tetrahedral molecules have lower symmetry. Tetrahedral molecules can be chiral. Tetrahedral bond angle The bond angle for a symmetric tetrahedral molecule such as CH4 may be calculated using the dot product of two vectors. As shown in the diagram, the molecule can be inscribed in a cube with the tetravalent atom (e.g. carbon) at the cube centre which is the origin of coordinates, O. The four monovalent atoms (e.g. hydrogens) are at four corners of the cube (A, B, C, D) chosen so that no two atoms are at adjacent corners linked by only one cube edge. If the edge length of the cub ...
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Octahedron
In geometry, an octahedron (plural: octahedra, octahedrons) is a polyhedron with eight faces. The term is most commonly used to refer to the regular octahedron, a Platonic solid composed of eight equilateral triangles, four of which meet at each vertex. A regular octahedron is the dual polyhedron of a cube. It is a rectified tetrahedron. It is a square bipyramid in any of three orthogonal orientations. It is also a triangular antiprism in any of four orientations. An octahedron is the three-dimensional case of the more general concept of a cross polytope. A regular octahedron is a 3-ball in the Manhattan () metric. Regular octahedron Dimensions If the edge length of a regular octahedron is ''a'', the radius of a circumscribed sphere (one that touches the octahedron at all vertices) is :r_u = \frac a \approx 0.707 \cdot a and the radius of an inscribed sphere (tangent to each of the octahedron's faces) is :r_i = \frac a \approx 0.408\cdot a while the midradius, which ...
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Ring Strain
In organic chemistry, ring strain is a type of instability that exists when bonds in a molecule form angles that are abnormal. Strain is most commonly discussed for small rings such as cyclopropanes and cyclobutanes, whose internal angles are substantially smaller than the idealized value of approximately 109°. Because of their high strain, the heat of combustion for these small rings is elevated. Ring strain results from a combination of angle strain, conformational strain or Pitzer strain (torsional eclipsing interactions), and transannular strain, also known as van der Waals strain or Prelog strain. The simplest examples of angle strain are small cycloalkanes such as cyclopropane and cyclobutane. Ring strain energy can be attributed to the energy required for the distortion of bond and bond angles in order to close a ring. Ring strain energy is believed to be the cause of accelerated rates in altering ring reactions. Its interactions with traditional bond energies chan ...
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Kinetically Stable
In chemistry and physics, metastability denotes an intermediate energetic state within a dynamical system other than the system's state of least energy. A ball resting in a hollow on a slope is a simple example of metastability. If the ball is only slightly pushed, it will settle back into its hollow, but a stronger push may start the ball rolling down the slope. Bowling pins show similar metastability by either merely wobbling for a moment or tipping over completely. A common example of metastability in science is isomerisation. Higher energy isomers are long lived because they are prevented from rearranging to their preferred ground state by (possibly large) barriers in the potential energy. During a metastable state of finite lifetime, all state-describing parameters reach and hold stationary values. In isolation: *the state of least energy is the only one the system will inhabit for an indefinite length of time, until more external energy is added to the system (unique "ab ...
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Cubane
Cubane () is a synthetic hydrocarbon compound that consists of eight carbon atoms arranged at the corners of a cube, with one hydrogen atom attached to each carbon atom. A solid crystalline substance, cubane is one of the Platonic hydrocarbons and a member of the prismanes. It was first synthesized in 1964 by Philip Eaton and Thomas Cole. Before this work, Eaton believed that cubane would be impossible to synthesize due to the "required 90 degree bond angles". The cubic shape requires the carbon atoms to adopt an unusually sharp 90° bonding angle, which would be highly strained as compared to the 109.45° angle of a tetrahedral carbon. Once formed, cubane is quite kinetically stable, due to a lack of readily available decomposition paths. It is the simplest hydrocarbon with octahedral symmetry. Having high potential energy but kinetic stability makes cubane and its derivative compounds useful for controlled energy storage. For example, octanitrocubane and heptanitrocubane have ...
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