Methanium

Methanium can be produced in the laboratory as a rarefied gas or as a dilute species in superacids.

It was prepared for the first time in 1950 and published in 1952 by Victor Talrose and his assistant Anna Konstantinovna Lyubimova.

Fluxional methanium can be visualised as a CH+3 carbenium ion with a molecule of hydrogen interacting with the empty orbital in a 3-center-2-electron bond.

[5][6] Infrared spectroscopy has been used to obtain information about the different conformations of the methanium ion.

At low pressures (around 1 mmHg) and ambient temperatures, methanium is unreactive towards neutral methane.

A carbon atom, bearing a formal charge of +1, single-bonded to each of five hydrogen atoms
A carbon atom single-bonded to each of three hydrogen atoms and engaging in a three-center two-electron bond with two additional hydrogen atoms, the group as a whole bearing a +1 charge