Fluoromethylidyne is not a stable chemical species but a metastable
radical containing one highly reactive carbon atom bound to one fluorine atom with the
formula
In science, a formula is a concise way of expressing information symbolically, as in a mathematical formula or a ''chemical formula''. The informal use of the term ''formula'' in science refers to the general construct of a relationship betwe ...
CF. The carbon atom has a lone-pair and a single unpaired (radical) electron in the
ground state
The ground state of a quantum-mechanical system is its stationary state of lowest energy; the energy of the ground state is known as the zero-point energy of the system. An excited state is any state with energy greater than the ground state ...
.
Ground-state fluoromethylidyne radicals can be produced by the
ultraviolet
Ultraviolet radiation, also known as simply UV, is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths of 10–400 nanometers, shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation is present in sunlight and constitutes about 10% of ...
photodissociation
Photodissociation, photolysis, photodecomposition, or photofragmentation is a chemical reaction in which molecules of a chemical compound are broken down by absorption of light or photons. It is defined as the interaction of one or more photons wi ...
of
dibromodifluoromethane at 248 nanometer wavelength.
It readily and irreversibly
dimerises to
difluoroacetylene, also known as difluoroethyne, perfluoroacetylene, or di- or perfluoroethylyne. Under certain conditions it can hexamerise to
hexafluorobenzene.
See also
*
Carbyne
In organic chemistry, a carbyne is a general term for any compound whose structure consists of an electrically neutral carbon atom connected by a single covalent bond and has three non-bonded electrons. The carbon atom has either one or three ...
References
Free radicals
Reactive intermediates
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