Researchers at RIKEN Advanced Science Institute in Japan and their colleagues have made a stable germanone, a ketone in which they have swapped out the C=O carbon atom for germanium. The work represents success in an area in which chemists have strived for many years.

Standard organic ketones are crucial components of many reactions but making homologous heavy ketones with germanium, silicon, tin, or lead, could open up a whole new area of reactivity. Until now, efforts were stymied by the tendency of such homologs to rapidly form oligomers or polymers.

The team has used bulky functional groups to preclude polymerization.

• A stable germanone as the first isolated heavy ketone with a terminal oxygen atom,
  Liangchun Li, Tomohide Fukawa, Tsukasa Matsuo, Daisuke Hashizume, Hiroyuki Fueno, Kazuyoshi Tanaka, Kohei Tamao
  Nature Chem. 2012.
  DOI: 10.1038/nchem.1305