organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clay ...

, methenium (also called methylium, carbenium, methyl cation, or protonated methylene) is a

cation An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by conve ...

with the formula . It can be viewed as a

methylene radical Methylene (systematically named methylidene and dihydridocarbon; also called carbene) is an organic compound with the chemical formula (also written ). It is a colourless gas that fluoresces in the mid-infrared range, and only persists in dilut ...

(:) with an added proton (), or as a

methyl radical Methyl (also systematically named trihydridocarbon) is an organic compound with the chemical formula (also written as •). It is a metastable colourless gas, which is mainly produced ''in situ'' as a precursor to other hydrocarbons in the petrol ...

(•) with one

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary partic ...

removed. It is a

carbocation A carbocation is an ion with a positively charged carbon atom. Among the simplest examples are the methenium , methanium and vinyl cations. Occasionally, carbocations that bear more than one positively charged carbon atom are also encoun ...

and an enium ion, making it the simplest of the carbenium ions.

Structure

Experiments and calculations generally agree that the methenium ion is planar, with threefold symmetry. The carbon atom is a prototypical (and exact) example of sp² hybridization.

Preparation and reactions

For

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is u ...