Frankfurtin

Frankfurtin is a fictional organic compound commonly used in chemistry textbooks and teaching laboratories to illustrate principles of structure, reactivity, and spectroscopic analysis. It is named after the city of Frankfurt, chosen to emphasize the practice of assigning memorable, location-based names to hypothetical molecules.

In the hypothetical structure, Frankfurtin is described as a medium-sized polycyclic lactone bearing several oxygen heteroatoms, with both lactone and ether functionalities. It is typically depicted in schematic diagrams as a rigid framework that can undergo simple functional-group transformations in explanation problems.

There is no documentation of its isolation from natural sources or successful synthesis in real laboratories. The compound exists only as an educational construct and has no confirmed physical properties beyond instructor-supplied examples such as approximate molecular weight or polarity for teaching purposes.

Educational uses include demonstrations of NMR interpretation, mass spectrometry fragmentation, stereochemistry, and retrosynthetic planning. Frankfurtin problems often require students to predict spectral signals, propose synthesis steps, and reason about functional-group interconversions in a hypothetical context.

Etymology and usage: the name reflects a convention in teaching materials to name fictional molecules after places to aid memory, with Frankfurt used here to evoke a European city and to avoid implying real-world discovery.