Bond length

It is a transferable property of a bond between atoms of fixed types, relatively independent of the rest of the molecule.

As a general trend, bond distances decrease across the row in the periodic table and increase down a group.

Current record holder for the longest C-C bond with a length of 180.6 pm is 1,8-Bis(5-hydroxydibenzo[a,d]cycloheptatrien-5-yl)naphthalene,[2] one of many molecules within a category of hexaaryl ethanes, which are derivatives based on hexaphenylethane skeleton.

Longest C-C bond within the cyclobutabenzene category is 174 pm based on X-ray crystallography.

In propionitrile the cyano group withdraws electrons, also resulting in a reduced bond length (144 pm).

In an in silico experiment a bond distance of 136 pm was estimated for neopentane locked up in fullerene.

[7] The smallest theoretical C–C single bond obtained in this study is 131 pm for a hypothetical tetrahedrane derivative.