Mystery Molecule – more clues…

As you will have seen from the comments, Peter Corbett knows what it is – and quite rightly isn’t saying. But no other response. What does an author do when all the readers are lurkers? Here’s the first strategy – lure them on. So here’s a clue to keep you interested.
This is the unit cell of the crystal with the axes drawn correctly and precisely. I shan’t give them exactly as that would allow you to look them up (more on that later).
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However if you are adventurous you can measure them and deconstruct the perspective and probably get quite good ratios.
The picture is, of course, thanks to Jmol – a Blue Obelisk member.

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4 Responses to Mystery Molecule – more clues…

  1. daen says:

    Not lurking, Peter – just baffled and in chronic suspenders … um .. suspense. I’m also still waiting for the denouement of the previous sets of mystery molecules …

  2. pm286 says:

    (1) daen – that’s great. Every comment on this list is really valuable as otherwise I have no idea whether it’s worth continuing posting…
    The earlier mystery molecules were connected (a) because they all came from chemical blogs (Tenderbutton, Totally Synthetic, Org Prep Daily and Useful Chem, I think) and (b) because I had hidden an InChI in them (as alt tag).
    I am sitting with Jim Downing here – Jim is not a chemist – but he is tackling this very intelligently and has narrowed the search down. Not yet enough.
    The other thing this shows, of course, is that Data needs to be Open. For example if I gave the cell dimensions you would have to use CCDC to search. When we have an Open knowledge base of crystallography – not too far away now – we will be able to search that way.
    If I get more readers commenting like you, I’ll give some more help… 🙂

  3. milkshake says:

    I bet the molecule is a rather beautiful [… clues deleted by PMR…]. I know couple of synthetic chemists who isolated the stuff in a great yield and purity but were rather puzzled by its NMR spectra…
    To not to laugh at others misfortune, I was once doing a BF3-catalyzed reaction in tetrahydrofuran as a solvent and obtained a great quantity of a low-melting (30C)hygroscopic crystalline solid. I re-crystallized it to a perfect purity. It was (CH2CH2CH2CH2O)n , a THF oligomer.

  4. pm286 says:

    (3) Well done Milkshake! That’s about 4 readers to get it. I think you, like Peter Corbett, knew what it was – others have either got there by intuition or some form of search. I think the molecule is laughing at all of us!

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