Scientists have successfully synthesised one of last small polycyclic hydrocarbons left to make or find in nature.1
Until recently, trinorborane (tetracyclo[5.2.2.01,6.04,9]undecane) had only existed in the Chemical Universe Database (GDB) – a database containing all possible molecules up to a certain number of atoms.2 Trinorbornane has an interesting structure where two norbornanes share a pair of neighbouring edges so it looks like three interlaced norbornanes.
Source: Royal Society of Chemistry
The two enantiomers of trinorbornane display axial chirality
Read the full story by Adrian Robinson on Chemistry World.
1 L D Bizzini et al, Chem. Commun., 2017, DOI: 10.1039/c7cc06273g (This paper is free to access until 16 November 2017.)
