Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 19, 2026

Preparation of a Corannulene-functionalized Hexahelicene by CopperI-catalyzed Alkyne-azide Cycloaddition of Nonplanar Polyaromatic Units
Published on: September 18, 2016
Understanding the Reactivity of Planar Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons: Towards the Graphene Limit
Yago García-Rodeja1, Miquel Solà2, Israel Fernández3
1Departamento de Química Orgánica, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain.
Abstract:
The Diels-Alder reactivity of maleic anhydride towards the bay regions of planar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons was explored computationally in the DFT framework. The process becomes more and more exothermic and the associated activation barriers become lower and lower when the size of the system increases. This enhanced reactivity follows an exponential behavior that reaches its maximum for systems having 18-20 benzenoid rings in their structures. This peculiar behavior was analyzed in detail by using the activation strain model of reactivity in combination with energy decomposition analysis. The influence of the change in the aromaticity of the polycyclic compound during the process on the respective activation barriers was also studied.
Related Concept Videos
Aromatic Hydrocarbon Anions: Structural Overview
Due to the absence of continuous...
Aromatic Hydrocarbon Cations: Structural Overview
Removing one hydrogen from the intervening CH2 group...
Five-Membered Heterocyclic Aromatic Compounds: Overview
ortho–para-Directing Activators: –CH3, –OH, –⁠NH2, –OCH3
Photochemical Electrocyclic Reactions: Stereochemistry
Selection Rules: Photochemical Activation
Criteria for Aromaticity and the Hückel 4n + 2 Rule
For the first time, Eric Hückel, a German chemical physicist, derived a set of structural features for a compound to be classified as aromatic. This is now known as Hückel’s rule or the 4n +...

![[DPEPhosbcpCu]PF6: A General and Broadly Applicable Copper-Based Photoredox Catalyst](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcloudfront.jove.com%2FCDNSource%2Fteasers%2F59739.jpg&w=3840&q=50)