Tetrahedrane

The holy grail of strained molecules! Four fused cyclopropanes!! The tetradedron is the smallest of the Platonic polyhedra. There have been many attempts at synthesizing this molecule. The difficulty lies with the fact that the tetrahedranes easily decomposes into two alkines! Substituted derivatives of tetrahedrane (e.g. tetra tert.-butyl tetrahedrane) have been synthesized.


Figure. A molecular model of tetrahedrane.