Aromatic compounds buckminsterfullerene

The structures of organic polynuclear aromatic compounds are not limited to planar systems of carbon and hydrogen atoms. A classification of three-dimensional aromatic compounds is proposed on the basis of the number of recognizable edges (boundaries) in the molecular structure. Aromatic structures with no edges are included in this classification an example is the recently proposed truncated icosahedral structure for C6o (Buckminsterfullerene). The current literature and activity in the subfield of nonplanar aromatic compounds is reviewed. Three-dimensional aromatic compounds are possible tools for use in studies of polynuclear aromatic chemistry, and some possible applications to the particular chemical topics presented in this book are outlined. 

In a treatise entitled "New Dimensions in Polynudear Aromatic Compounds", Herndon (1988) has described a number of polycyclic conjugated compounds, induding corannulene, a cydacene and CgQ buckminsterfullerene (Osawa 1970 Kroto et al. 1985 Kratschmer et al. 1990) see Fig. 10. The reader understands presumably very well that a full survey of the literature on this interesting molecule (and other fullerenes) is too voluminous (counting thousands of references) to be induded here. In the following small extract the number of Kekule structures K = 12500) for C q is reported (not necessarily as an original finding). 

The chemistry of curved, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons holds great promise due, in part, to the rampant interests in fullerenes. Of special interest, of course, is their relationship to the fullerenes, and these compounds should serve as good models in many ways since the curvature of the systems already known matches that of buckminsterfullerene, at least at the point of maximum curvature. 

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