Tetracarbon dioxide
Tetracarbon dioxide is an oxide of carbon, a chemical compound of carbon and oxygen, with chemical formula C4O2 or O=C=C=C=C=O. It can be regarded as butatriene dione, the double ketone of butatriene — more precisely 1,2,3-butatriene-1,4-dione.
Butatriene dione is the fourth member of the family of linear carbon dioxides On=O, that includes carbon dioxide CO2 or O=C=O, ethylene dione C2O2 or O=C=C=O, carbon suboxide C3O2 or O=C=C=C=O, pentacarbon dioxide C5O2 or O=C=C=C=C=C=O, and so on.
The compound was obtained in 1990 by Maier and others, by flash vacuum pyrolysis of cyclic azaketones in a frozen argon matrix. It was also obtained in the same year by Sülzle and Schwartz through impact ionization of 22 in the gas phase. Although theoretical studies indicated that the even-numbered members of the On=O family should be inherently unstable, C4O2 is indefinitely stable in the matrix, but is decomposed by light into tricarbon monoxide C3O and carbon monoxide CO. It has a triplet ground state.
