Organic Chemistry in "Real Life": 6-Membered Rings
We are borrowing from a first semester "Real Life" page here. By now we all know that the 6-membered ring is a particularly stable ring structure, both in cycloalkanes (cyclohexane) and now, as an aromatic system. 6-Membered benzene rings occur frequently in organic structures.
>Multiple benzene rings fused together are called polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH's). You may have heard of PAH's in the context of polluting components of soots and incomplete combustion, and indeed many are known carcinogens, including benzene itself. This is unfortunate since I used to have to purify 5 liters of benzene each week by shaking it with conc. sulfuric acid in a separatory funnel. Releasing the pressure in the separatory funnel released a fine mist of conc. sulfuric and benzene vapor into the atmosphere that made tiny holes in all my clothes and when inhaled, probably accumulated in my liver!
6-Membered rings are an important part of the fundamantal structures of many many important biological molecules. Here are just a couple of examples.
How about this example?
And why is tetracycline so called?
Before organic chemists came up with synthetic dyes, indigo was once as important a cash crop in the US as cotton
OK, you get the idea. Let's end this with a look at the four bases that form the ATCG genetic code in DNA.
6-Membered rings are not only important in organic systems. Look at this wonderful STM image of an array of individual gallium atoms on a graphite surface.
It is interesting to see how an atomic 6-membered ring motif can repeat on the macro scale. An extreme example is found in Fingal's cave, on the tiny island of Staffa off the northwest coast of Scotland (Fingal's cave inspired Mendelssohn's Hebridean overture). You can only get there by boat (from personal experience it can be a very rough ride!) from the island of Iona (where Saint Patrick landed to bring christianity to the British Isles, and the burial place of Macbeth, am I getting off track here?). The cave contains massive volcanic basalt hexagonal columns. I don't know the composition of basalt, but clearly the hexagonal packing of the ions is reflected in the macro structure of these giant crystals, each a couple of feet in diameter and many meters tall.
6-Membered rings abound in nature, some obvious examples include this honeycomb and wasp nest, and these amazing pictures of snowflakes!
A hexagram is a 6-pointed figure composed of two equilateral triangles superimposed on each other. Can you see the Star of David hexagram in this Silver bowl from Damascus?