Tetracarbon dioxide is an

oxide of carbon In chemistry, an oxocarbon or oxide of carbon is a chemical compound consisting only of carbon and oxygen. The simplest and most common oxocarbons are carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (). Many other stable (practically if not thermodynamica ...

, a

chemical compound A chemical compound is a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) containing atoms from more than one chemical element held together by chemical bonds. A molecule consisting of atoms of only one element ...

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

and

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

, with chemical formula C₄O₂ or O=C=C=C=C=O. It can be regarded as butatriene dione, the double

ketone In organic chemistry, a ketone is a functional group with the structure R–C(=O)–R', where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones contain a carbonyl group –C(=O)– (which contains a carbon-oxygen double bo ...

of butatriene — more precisely 1,2,3-butatriene-1,4-dione.J.I.G. Codagan, John Buckingham, Finlay J. MacDonald, P. H. Rhodes (1996), ''Dictionary of Organic Compounds''. CRC Press, , . 9000 pages. Butatriene dione is the fourth member of the family of linear carbon dioxides O(=C)_''n''=O, that includes

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

CO₂ or O=C=O,

ethylene dione Ethylene dione or ethylenedione, also called dicarbon dioxide, Carbon peroxide, ethenedione, or ethene-1,2-dione, is a chemical compound with the formula or . It is an oxide of carbon (an oxocarbon), and can be described as the carbon-carbon c ...

C₂O₂ or O=C=C=O,

carbon suboxide Carbon suboxide, or tricarbon dioxide, is an organic, oxygen-containing chemical compound with formula and structure . Its four cumulative double bonds make it a cumulene. It is one of the stable members of the series of linear oxocarbons , whi ...

C₃O₂ or O=C=C=C=O,

pentacarbon dioxide Pentacarbon dioxide, officially penta-1,2,3,4-tetraene-1,5-dione, is an oxide of carbon (an oxocarbon) with formula C5O2 or O=C=C=C=C=C=O. The compound was described in 1988 by Günter Maier and others, who obtained it by pyrolysis of cyclohexan ...

C₅O₂ or O=C=C=C=C=C=O, and so on. The compound was obtained in 1990 by Maier and others, by

flash vacuum pyrolysis Flash vacuum pyrolysis (FVP) is a technique in organic synthesis. It entails heating a precursor molecule intensely and briefly. Two key parameters are the temperature and duration (or residence time), which are adjusted to optimize yield, convers ...

of cyclic azaketones in a frozen argon matrix. It was also obtained in the same year by Sülzle and

Schwartz Schwartz may refer to: *Schwartz (surname), a surname (and list of people with the name) *Schwartz (brand), a spice brand *Schwartz's, a delicatessen in Montreal, Quebec, Canada *Schwartz Publishing, an Australian publishing house *"Danny Schwartz" ...

through impact ionization of ((CH₃-)₂(C₄O₂)(=O)₂=)₂ in the gas phase. Although theoretical studies indicated that the even-numbered members of the O(=C)_''n''=O family should be inherently unstable,V. Krishnamurthy and V. H. Rawal (1997), J. Org. Chem., volume 62, 1572. C₄O₂ is indefinitely stable in the matrix, but is decomposed by light into

tricarbon monoxide Tricarbon monoxide C3O is a reactive radical oxocarbon molecule found in space, and which can be made as a transient substance in the laboratory. It can be trapped in an inert gas matrix or made as a short lived gas. C3O can be classified as a k ...

C₃O and

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a colorless, poisonous, odorless, tasteless, flammable gas that is slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the simple ...

CO.Günther Maier, Hans Peter Reisenauer, Heinz Balli, Willy Brandt, Rudolf Janoschek(1990), ''C₄O₂ (1,2,3-Butatriene-1,4-dione), the First Dioxide of Carbon with an Even Number of C Atoms''. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, volume 29, p. 905–908. It has a

triplet A triplet is a set of three items, which may be in a specific order, or unordered. It may refer to: Science * A series of three nucleotide bases forming an element of the Genetic code * J-coupling as part of Nuclear magnetic resonance spectrosc ...

ground state.

References

* François Diederich and Yves Rubin (2003), ''Synthetic Approaches toward Molecular and Polymeric Carbon Allotropes''. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 31 Issue 9, Pages 1101–1123. {{Oxides of carbon Oxocarbons Enones Ketenes Diketones Substances discovered in the 1990s