Carbyne

In chemistry, a carbyne is a monovalent carbon radical species. It occurs in several ways.

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Gas phase

A carbene can occur as a short-lived reactive intermediate. For instance, fluoromethylidyne (CF) can be detected in the gas phase by spectroscopy as an intermediate in the flash photolysis of CHFBr₂. ^[1]

Organometallic

Carbynes are incorporated in metal carbyne complexes^{[2] [3]} For example in [WBr(CO)₂(2,2'-bipyridine)C-Aryl] and [WBr(CO)₂(PPh₃)₂C-NR2]. An example of how to make such a compound would be to react [W(CO)₆] with Lithium diisopropylamide to form [(ⁱPr₂N)(OLi)C=W(CO)₅]. This is then reacted with either oxalyl bromide or Br-Br-PPh₃ followed by triphenyl phosphine. Another method is to treat a methoxy metal carbene with a lewis acid. ^[4]

Form of carbon

Carbyne, or polyyne, is also another name for Linear Acetylenic Carbon ^[5] (LAC) the carbon allotrope that has the chemical structure ^[6] -(C:::C)_n- .Carbon in this modification is linear with sp orbital hybridisation, and is a polymer with alternating single and triple bonds. This type of carbyne is of considerable interest to nanotechnology as its Young's modulus is forty times that of the hardest known material - diamond ^[7].

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