An attempt to prepare sterically protected tungsten corroles led to the first free-base corrole radical. In their Communication in Angewandte Chemie, Martin Bröring and colleagues, Technical University Braunschweig, Germany, report an air-stable and easy-to-handle open-shell 17π-porphyrinoid 1 with a SOMO (singly occupied molecular orbital) that resembles the symmetry of a Rorschach or inkblot image (see above).

 

The researchers see their corrole radical, of course. We collected some of our own ideas below. What do you see in the picture? Let us know and find out what others think in the results.

 

Trees		Plane		Teddy		Drone

 

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• The Corrole Radical,
  Peter Schweyen, Kai Brandhorst, Richard Wicht, Benedikt Wolfram, Martin Bröring,
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015.
  DOI: 10.1002/anie.201503624