1,3-Dioxetane (1,3-dioxacyclobutane) is a
heterocyclic
A heterocyclic compound or ring structure is a cyclic compound that has atoms of at least two different elements as members of its ring(s). Heterocyclic chemistry is the branch of organic chemistry dealing with the synthesis, properties, and ...
organic compound
In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. Th ...
with formula C
2O
2H
4, whose backbone is a four-member ring of alternating oxygen and carbon atoms. It can be viewed as a
dimer
Dimer may refer to:
* Dimer (chemistry), a chemical structure formed from two similar sub-units
** Protein dimer, a protein quaternary structure
** d-dimer
* Dimer model, an item in statistical mechanics, based on ''domino tiling''
* Julius Dimer ( ...
of
formaldehyde
Formaldehyde ( , ) ( systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound with the formula and structure . The pure compound is a pungent, colourless gas that polymerises spontaneously into paraformaldehyde (refer to section ...
(COH
2).
Derivatives of 1,3-dioxetane are rarely encountered as intermediates in the literature. Usually, they are prepared via
+2cycloadditions of two carbonyl compounds. Molecular orbital theory calculations suggest that they should be more stable than the
1,2-isomers, which are more intensively studied.
See also
*
1,2-Dioxetane
References
Dioxetanes
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