A theorized new class of polyhedral hydrocarbons of molecular formula CnHn and their bottom-up scaffold expansions into hyperstructures

Abstract

We address the use of Euler's theorem and topological algorithms to design 18 polyhedral hydrocarbons of general formula CnHn that exist up to 28 vertexes containing four- and six-membered rings only; compounds we call “nuggets”. Subsequently, we evaluated their energies to verify the likelihood of their chemical existence. Among these compounds, 13 are novel systems, of which 3 exhibit chirality. Further, the ability of all nuggets to perform fusion reactions either through their square faces, or through their hexagonal faces was evaluated. Indeed, they are potentially able to form bottom-up derived molecular hyperstructures with great potential for several applications. By considering these fusion abilities, the growth of the nuggets into 1D, 2D, and 3D-scaffolds was studied. The results indicate that nugget24a (C24H24) is predicted to be capable of carrying out fusion reactions. From nugget24a, we then designed 1D, 2D, and 3D-scaffolds that are predicted to be formed by favorable fusion reactions. Finally, a 3D-scaffold generated from nugget24a exhibited potential to be employed as a voxel with a chemical structure remarkably similar to that of MOF ZIF-8. And, such a voxel, could in principle be employed to generate any 3D sculpture with nugget24a as its level of finest granularity.