COMPARING THE RANDIĆ–BALABAN AND THE CLAR MODELS FOR PARTITIONING OF π-ELECTRONS IN RINGS OF BENZENOID HYDROCARBONS: THE CASE OF PHENES AND STARPHENES

Abstract

As recently proposed by Randić and Balaban, the π-electron content of a ring of a benzenoid hydrocarbon (EC RB ) is computed as the average of the π-electron contents of the Kekulé structures. An analogous electron content (EC Cl ) can be conceived by employing Clar formulas instead of Kekulé structures. We compare the two approaches (of which the one based on Clar theory is much simpler), and show that in the case of phenes and starphenes both give essentially the same results.