alt Hacker News>Move over cyclopentadiene anion—there’s a new five-membered aromatic ring in town, and this one is made of silicon.
CHEM-Es are build a little different from the rest of us.
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Cyclopentadiene is a great molecule - it can form 'metallocene' compounds where two cyclopentadiene (Cp) rings 'sandwich' a metal ion between them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallocene
Like Cp--M--Cp where the '--' are an unusual kind of 'bond' which is somewhat like five carbon-metal bonds, although I'm sure there is a more accurate orbital description of the interaction.
"The average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars" (https://xkcd.com/2501)
Nah, this is just a strict chemical synthesis problem, no need for the engineers yet, until you want to make ten thousand tons of the stuff.
Chemists really. Chem-E’s basically just play IRL Factorio at work. The graphs in Factorio look almost exactly like OSI PiSoft charts, which basically every chemical plant uses.