An organic molecule first postulated a century ago has finally been created and characterized in the lab.
Scientists first theorized the existence of ethylenedione in 1913, but it remained unobserved despite its simple chemical formula (OCCO). Andrei Sanov and his colleagues at the University of Arizona in Tucson created the molecule by bombarding the stable ion OCCO− with laser light, which stripped an electron off. They measured the energy of ejected electrons, enabling them to characterize neutral OCCO, which has been predicted to survive for less than a nanosecond.
The unstable compound decays quickly into two molecules of carbon monoxide.
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Elusive molecule made in the lab. Nature 523, 385 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/523385c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/523385c
