{"id":236169,"date":"2026-04-29T19:02:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/chemists-stabilize-rare-three-atom-metal-ring-revealing-new-form-of-aromaticity"},"modified":"2026-04-29T19:02:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T00:02:01","slug":"chemists-stabilize-rare-three-atom-metal-ring-revealing-new-form-of-aromaticity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/chemists-stabilize-rare-three-atom-metal-ring-revealing-new-form-of-aromaticity","title":{"rendered":"Chemists stabilize rare three\u2011atom metal ring, revealing new form of aromaticity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/chemists-stabilize-rare-three-atom-metal-ring-revealing-new-form-of-aromaticity2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In a world first, the team, led by Professor Stephen Liddle, discovered a new type of aromatic molecule made entirely of metal atoms, the heaviest of its kind ever confirmed. The team stabilized an extremely rare three\u2011atom ring of bismuth, held between two large metal atoms (uranium or thorium) in a structure known as an \u201cinverse\u2011sandwich\u201d complex.<\/p>\n<p>This breakthrough provides fresh insight into one of chemistry\u2019s most familiar concepts\u2014aromaticity\u2014and shows it can occur not only in carbon\u2011based rings like benzene, but also in unusual clusters of heavy metals. The paper is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41557-026-02123-8\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Nature Chemistry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a world first, the team, led by Professor Stephen Liddle, discovered a new type of aromatic molecule made entirely of metal atoms, the heaviest of its kind ever confirmed. The team stabilized an extremely rare three\u2011atom ring of bismuth, held between two large metal atoms (uranium or thorium) in a structure known as an [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}