Carbyne

In chemistry, a carbyne is a monovalent carbon radical species. It occurs in several ways.

Gas phase

 * A carbene can occur as a short-lived reactive intermediate. For instance, fluoromethylidyne (CF) can be detected in the gas phase by spectroscopy as an intermediate in the flash photolysis of CHFBr2. [1]

Organometallic

 * Carbynes are incorporated in metal carbyne complexes. Details of their reactivity and that of the related carbenes is shown at . For example in [WBr(CO)2(2,2'-bipyridine)C-Aryl] and [WBr(CO)2(PPh3)2C-NR2]. An example of how to make such a compound would be to react [W(CO)6] with Lithium diisopropylamide to form [(iPr2N)(OLi)C=W(CO)5]. This is then reacted with either oxalyl bromide or Br-Br-PPh3 followed by triphenyl phosphine.

Another method is to treat a methoxy metal carbene with a lewis acid.

Form of carbon

 * Carbyne is also the name for the carbon allotrope that has the chemical structure [2] -(C:::C)n- .Carbon in this modification is linear with sp orbital hybridisation, and is a polymer with alternating single and triple bonds. This type of carbyne is of considerable interest to nanotechnology.