This One’s for Chemistry Amateurs: a Chemical Miracle Happened!

A team of researchers affiliated with Japan’s Hokkaido University has successfully identified a single-electron covalent bond between two carbon atoms, a discovery hailed as a miracle.

“These results thus constitute the first piece of experimental evidence for a carbon-carbon single-electron covalent bond, which can be expected to pave the way for further developments of the chemistry of this scarcely explored type of bonding,” explains Takuya Shimajiri, first author of the study and an assistant professor at Tokyo University.

Single-electron covalent bonds are highly reactive and less stable, so researchers performed an oxidation reaction of a derivative of hexaphenylethane using iodine to stabilize the bond. The reaction led to the formation of violet-coloured crystals, where they noticed two elongated carbon atoms that had come closer because of the formation of a single-electron covalent between them. Carbon being the essential ingredient for life, the current findings are of high importance because “elucidating the nature of single-electron sigma-bonds between two carbon atoms is essential to gain a deeper understanding of chemical-bonding theories and would provide further insights into chemical reactions,” clarifies Yusuke Ishigaki, one of the study authors and a professor at Hokkaido University.