Spiropentane
chemical compound
Spiropentane is a hydrocarbon with formula C5H8. It is the simplest spiro-connected cycloalkane, a triangulane.
It took several years after the discovery in 1887 until the structure of the molecule was determined. According to the nomenclature rules for spiro compounds, the systematic name is spiro[2.2]pentane. However, there can be no constitutive isomeric spiropentanes, hence the name is unique without brackets and numbers.
Synthesis
After Gustavson produced cyclopropane by reacting 1,3-dibromopropane with ground-up zinc metal, he tried the same reaction with 2,2-bis(bromomethyl)-1,3-dibromopropane (see formula scheme). The starting material is easily obtained by reacting pentaerythritol with hydrobromic acid. A molecule with the formula C5H8 was obtained. It was called vinyltrimethylene in the initial publication. In 1907, Fecht expressed the assumption that it must be spiropentane, a constitutional isomer of vinylcyclopropane.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spiropentane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.