Platonic hydrocarbon

[1][page needed] Not all Platonic solids have molecular hydrocarbon counterparts; those that do are the tetrahedron (tetrahedrane), the cube (cubane), and the dodecahedron (dodecahedrane).

Although it has high angle strain, cubane is kinetically stable, due to a lack of readily available decomposition paths.

Angle strain would make an octahedron highly unstable due to inverted tetrahedral geometry at each vertex.

There would also be no hydrogen atoms because four edges meet at each corner; thus, the hypothetical octahedrane molecule, with a molecular formula of C6, would be an allotrope of elemental carbon rather than a hydrocarbon.

Both icosahedral and octahedral structures have been observed in boron compounds[2] such as the dodecaborate ion and some of the carbon-containing carboranes.