IIT JAM UGC CSIR NET GATE CHEMISTRY

Moritz Malischewski
 & Konrad Seppelt

Carbon seen bonding with six other atoms for the first time :-

Angenwandte Chemie, 2017   

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[ When hexamethylbenzene loses two electrons, it rearranges from a flat hexagonal ring into the five-sided pyramid shown here. The carbon atom on top of the pyramid bonds to six other carbon atoms as opposed to the usual four. ] 

    Chemists confirm links to six other atoms in unusual molecule.

      In the 1970s, another group of researchers from Germany made some intriguing observations about “hexamethylbenzene” which can exist in a stable configuration of six carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal ring flag. 

       Moritz Malischewski and colleagues from the “Free University of Berlin” decided to sweep the dust off old paper and try it out. It was a little bit difficult at first because the original paper was poor on details but the researchers eventually managed to make the charged hexamethylbenzene molecule.

   

      After the molecule was crystalized, a three days mentional map of the Crystal's structure was made by using X-rays. Strikingly, the experiment proved that when hexamethylbenzene lost two electrons. It recorded that itself in the six carbon bond configuration. Specially, one carbon atom jumped out of the flag hexagonal and eventually turning the structure into a five -sided carbon pyramid. The carbon right a top to the pyramid was bonded to six other carbon atoms, five in the ring and one above.