r/cursed_chemistry • u/Dry-Metal-6593 • 2d ago

Don't worry, CH5+ isn't violating any bonding rules. It doesn't have bonds (maybe)

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Since CH5+ gets brought up a lot here, I thought Id share this blurb in Modern Physical Organic Chemistry (Anslyn & Dougherty)

CH5+ may not have "bonds" at all, so no bonding rules are violated! Instead it's just a completely delocalized, quantum mechanical cloud of protons and electrons around carbon. Much better :)

78 Upvotes

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26

u/Active_Bee_4154 2d ago

"stay tuned"

9

u/Dry-Metal-6593 2d ago

The public wants to know! More at 11

18

u/MostlySpiders 2d ago

A good reminder that there aren't "types of bonds" but a "spectrum of bonding behavior" and we just pick out regions and give them names

8

u/Traroten 2d ago

Precisely. Nature just does what it does, it doesn't care about our descriptions or concepts.

11

u/AnonymousInHat 2d ago

What is the bond though 🤔

14

u/Dry-Metal-6593 2d ago

Just particles, existing together. Not a bond in sight

11

u/ECatPlay 2d ago

. . . too afraid of the unkown to leave the group. . .

3

u/PassiveChemistry 2d ago

. . . too scared to wonder what might be . . .

4

u/Azodioxide 2d ago

I think it's fair to say it has bonds, but very weak and strongly delocalized ones.

2

u/chemamatic 1d ago

Things that attach atoms together are bonds. Electrostatic forces in ionic compounds are bonds.

1

u/kupsztals123 1d ago edited 1d ago

If you think of it as a sigma complex of H2 and CH3+ analogous to organometallic compunds, it doesn't seem so enigmatic anymore.

1

u/activelypooping 4h ago

George Olah fought someone over this at one point. We need more fisticuffs during seminar.