Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Building molecules: molecular engineering
Toute la nature est a mes ordres, nous repondit la Durand, et elle sera tou-
jours aux volontes de ceux qui l'etudieront: avec la chimie et la physique
on parvient a tout.
All of nature is at my command, replied Madame Durand, and she will
always be at the will of those who study her: with chemistry and physics
one can achieve anything.
Marquis de Sade,
Histoire de Juliette
Stating that molecules constitute the most important part of MOMs seems superflu-
ous since they are indeed their fundamental building blocks. However, since most
of the attention and glory has been devoted to the properties of MOMs, from both
the scientific and technological points of view, the first and indispensable step in
the chain that leads to MOMs, that is the synthesis of the constituent molecules
without which MOMs cannot be built, has somehow been ignored. For a layman
in the domain of synthesis of organic molecules (and this is my case) it is certainly
easy to fall under the wrong impression that almost any molecule can be synthe-
sized, given the seemingly countless number of available molecules that can be
found in the literature. However, the creation of new molecules is, as expected,
a complex matter and we will see a revealing example in the following section,
where it will become evident that only a limited number of linear acenes have been
prepared.
This chapter is essentially devoted to researchers unfamiliar with chemical syn-
thesis and therefore it will be structured based on targeted examples of the most
relevant molecules discussed in the topic. Experts can skip this chapter if they wish
but I hope they can still find some interesting issues. For the sake of generality
we will proceed in line with the structural script given in subsection
Topology
of
Section 1.2, first building molecules exclusively from C
6
H
6
rings, then adding pen-
tagons and finally including functional groups, in a LEGO-like way (in Spanish
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