Following the general recognition of carbon as being tetrahedrally tetravalent in 1869 (Paterno) and 1874 (Van’t Hoff and Le Bell), an early seminal exploitation of this to the conformation of cyclohexane was by Hermann Sachse in 1890.[cite]10.1002/cber.189002301216 [/cite] This was verified when the Braggs in 1913[cite]10.1098/rspa.1913.0084[/cite], followed by an oft-cited article by Mohr in 1918,[cite]10.1002/prac.19180980123[/cite]

Mention carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ) to most chemists and its properties as a metal ligand are not the first aspect that springs to mind. Here thought I might take a look at how it might act as such.

Layer stacking in structures such as graphite is well-studied. The separation between the π-π planes is ~3.35Å, which is close to twice the estimated van der Waals (vdW) radius of carbon (1.7Å). But how much closer could such layers get, given that many other types of relatively weak interaction such as hydrogen bonding can contract the vdW distance sum by up to ~0.8Å or even more?

Nowadays, data supporting most publications relating to the synthesis of organic compounds is more likely than not to be found in associated “supporting information ” rather than the (often page limited) article itself. For example, this article[cite]10.1021/jacs.6b13229[/cite] has an SI which is paginated at 907;

I recently followed this bloggers trail; link1 → link2 to arrive at this delightful short commentary on atom-atom bonds in crystals[cite]10.1107/S2052252515002006[/cite] by Jack Dunitz. Here he discusses that age-old question (to chemists), what is a bond? Even almost 100 years after Gilbert Lewis’ famous analysis,[cite]10.1021/ja02261a002[/cite] we continue to ponder this question.

Allotropes are differing structural forms of the elements. The best known example is that of carbon, which comes as diamond and graphite, along with the relatively recently discovered fullerenes and now graphenes. Here I ponder whether any of the halogens can have allotropes. Firstly, I am not aware of much discussion on the topic.