I remember back in high school way back when asking my teacher if it was possible to have a compound comprised of every element. he told me it wasn't
possible based on their properties. after learning as much as have later on, I recognize the difficulty but refuse to think its impossible. extremely
difficult especially with elements that haven't been proved to form compounds yet like Neon or debatably helium or the elements that only exist long
enough for us to detect them. but whos to say what the future holds.
so acknowledging at the moment its impossible, I'm curious if anyone knows what compound currently holds the title for consisting of the largest
variety of elements.
I've tried searching online but can't find anything related at all.AndersHoveland - 22-6-2013 at 21:22
Yes, it is possible. It would probably be an high molecular weight organic compound. As for containing helium, the atom can be trapped inside a
dodecahedrane cage, or in fullerenes. There would not be much point though.DubaiAmateurRocketry - 22-6-2013 at 22:12
Yes, it is possible. It would probably be an high molecular weight organic compound. As for containing helium, the atom can be trapped inside a
dodecahedrane cage, or in fullerenes. There would not be much point though.
In that case, helium is trapped, so its not actually bonded to them right ?woelen - 23-6-2013 at 04:47
Yes, helium would be trapped inside a cage. Such compounds are called clathrates. A nice example of a clathrate is xenon-quinol, 3C6H4(OH)2.Xe. This
is hydroquinone, which for each three molecules of hydroquinone traps one atom of xenon inside its crystal lattice. When this clathrate is added to
water, then it bubbles while the hydroquinone dissolves.
Fullerenes also are known to form clathrates. An atom, or even a small molecule, can be trapped inside the fullerene ball.
The question, asked by Furboffle is an interesting one. Let's try to mention real existing compounds with as many elements in them as possible, but we
should restrict ourselves to compounds with precise stoichiometry and not some vague mixes. Theoretically constructed compounds, which only exist in
the memory of a computer or as a drawing do not count.12AX7 - 23-6-2013 at 17:39
Certainly it should be possible to make an organic backbone studded with various p-block elements, some of which will assist in holding the rest of
the elements (transition metals complexed to oxygen or nitrogen, for example). What's tricky is ensuring that the other elements stay where they are
placed: you aren't going to get a Na-C (organosodium) bond anywhere near, say, an FeO6 center (that is to say, an octahedrally complexed iron atom,
which could be +2 or +3 oxidation state; the Os can be part of anything, an EDTA structure, etc.), and you're unlikely to hold the sodium on a more
ionic bond, at least with any specificity. That's the real challenge, getting the individual parts so tightly bonded that they are locked in place,
so that you can guarantee your molecule is indeed an "at least one of everything" molecule, and not just a random mixture of "well, it's all in
solution, so there's probably one or two in the right configuration". Such a well-defined substance would also be crystallizable* and have very
interesting analytical properties: it would illustrate chemical NMR of every single nuclei which responds to NMR!
*Yeah, when we're talking a chain of, say, 1000 atoms, with various size bumps and substitutions along the length, it's going to look more like a
liquid crystal or your average polymer, rather disorderly, probably not well lined up. So the x-ray diffraction probably wouldn't be too useful.
I would figure you'd want to start with units containing each element in turn, then dimerizing them to ultimately form the finished molecule. You'd
probably use a backbone with complementary terminal functional groups, a "plug" and a "socket" (which could be, say, carboxylate and amine groups, for
a peptide chain). Protect the "plug" of one and the "socket" of the other so they don't self-polymerize, and are forced to dimerize instead. Then
unprotect the mating ends and dimerize again (now making a tetramer), and so on in a binary series until the finished product. It could also be grown
in a linear manner the way proteins are synthesized: anchored at one end to a substrate, then grown one unit at a time.
But again, the hard part is making a structure to house each element so firmly that it doesn't react with anything else. Clathrates, crown ethers,
carcerands, buckyballs: these are all possibilities. Perhaps double carcerands (chemical Russian dolls..) could improve steric hindrance.
Comes to mind: copper (and most other) phthalocyanine is very strongly bonded. Even in concentrated sulfuric acid, the metal atom basically just sits
there. This could be functionalized to chain together more than a few elements right away. I don't know what all elements are particularly happy in
phthalocyanine, but I recall copper, nickel, cobalt (and zinc?) are.
Speaking of pigments... I would have to guess this thing would be black, or at least a murky, tinted, dark gray. With so many elements, and
structures to hold them, it would absorb basically all wavelengths.
Timphlogiston - 24-6-2013 at 00:21
Fun challenge.
The best I can come up with is the enzyme nitric oxide synthase, which contains the following elements:
N, C, O, H, P, S, Fe and Ca
Some of these are in prosthetic groups, however, which may or may not be acceptable for this challenge.Dr.Bob - 24-6-2013 at 11:50
Here is a good starting point: tBu-DIPPAM-copper complex at
C54H50Cu4F12N2Na2O16P2S4, MW 1701.33 (see Aldrich 709581-100mg)
But I think I have seen a "drug candidate" that once had three or four halogens, plus CHNOS, and a few others.
I do remember hearing about the molecule with the most elements in CAS/Scifinder, which was over 14, I believe.Bezaleel - 26-6-2013 at 07:53
If you could construct an inorganic one, it might well prove to be a supercondutor. It was once shown that it is the periodicity in the
layer-structure of the crystal that may cause a material to be type-II superconductive. In high Tc superconductors, you have 2 layers that alternate.
This could be a barium-yttrium oxide layer with now and then a layer of copper-oxide (simply speaking). When the layers of copperoxide were farther
apart, and more barium-yttriumoxide layers were between them, the Tc increased! Unfortunately, when there are too few copperoxide layers, the
substance is no longer mechanically stable.
But maybe when you would succeed in combining a third layer, you might end up with a stable compound. The more elements, the more fun Fantasma4500 - 29-6-2013 at 11:24
the biggest problem would probably be astate, if you strip approx. 40% of the earth down as much as 8 earth layers you would only find as little as
0.7g astate
i have this information from a book, and if im wrong, then im not wrong by much (:
ofcourse other planets might have higher amounts of astate..Finnnicus - 29-6-2013 at 22:48
Astate? Maybe you mean astatine? Astatine is a radioactive halogen with its isotope with the longest half life being less than a day. That one?
Because I think it is exempt from the criteria here.
I have a question. With nuclear decay, do covalent bonds remain? Or will the electrons fly off and screw it up? Somehow I doubt it would work.12AX7 - 30-6-2013 at 07:22
When a nucleus decays by alpha, beta or gamma, the reaction energy of the remaining nucleus isn't too much and it tends to stay in place. Alphas are
notoriously damaging because they will knock smaller atoms out of place and leave ionization trails. If uranium (and etc.) isn't too heavy, it may
well be kicked out of place by its alpha decay.
Obviously, fission leaves nothing behind; both halves are ejected with substantial energy (the total, including neutrons and other bric-a-brak that's
produced, is something like 80MeV), and tend to end up with different electron shells anyway (suppose U(IV) decays to Sr(II) + Xe(0), although I'll
have to check if that's a pair that's actually possible!). Needless to say, those fragments will cause a lot of damage on their way.
If this all-inclusive compound is a solid ionic crystal with high binding energy, beta and gamma decays won't matter, but alphas will knock things
around, at least the lighter things. If it's an organic molecule (which, like I said, seems necessary to ensure composition), it will be much more
sensitive to ionization, even from beta and gamma sources.
