Oxirene
Oxirene is a hypothesized heterocyclic chemical compound which contains an unsaturated three-membered ring containing two carbon atoms and one oxygen atom. Because it has never been observed, the substance is mainly studied by quantum chemical computational techniques. As the configuration is extremely strained and proposed to be an anti-aromatic 4 π electron system, oxirene is expected to be very high energy and unstable according to these calculations. Moreover, different computational methods draw different conclusions as to whether the structure constitutes a true molecule or merely a transition state between two isomeric molecular species.
Experimental indications exist that substituted oxirenes may be involved in carbonylcarbene rearrangements observed in the Wolff rearrangement. Computational evidence also point to the intermediacy of oxirenes in the ozonolysis of alkynes.
