Sir: Acephenanthrylene (I) has crept into the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) literature. It has been identified several times with apparent certainty by gas chromatographic mass spectrometry even though neither its GC retention characteristics nor its mass spectral behavior are known. For example, Oro and Han (I, 2) first “identified” acephenanthrylene as a product of the silica-catalyzed pyrolysis of methane. It has also ...
