The chemical

Chemistry

Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....

 compound 1,3-dioxetanedione, or 1,3-dioxacyclobutane-2,4-dione is a hypothetical oxide of carbon

Oxocarbon

An oxocarbon or oxide of carbon is an inorganic compound consisting only of carbon and oxygen.The simplest and most common oxocarbons are carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide...

 with formula C₂O₄. It can be considered a cyclic dimer of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

 (CO₂) or as a double ketone

Ketone

In organic chemistry, a ketone is an organic compound with the structure RCR', where R and R' can be a variety of atoms and groups of atoms. It features a carbonyl group bonded to two other carbon atoms. Many ketones are known and many are of great importance in industry and in biology...

 of 1,3-dioxetane

1,3-Dioxetane

1,3-Dioxetane is a heterocyclic organic compound with formula C2O2H4, whose backbone is a four-member ring of alternating oxygen and carbon atoms.It can be viewed as a dimer of formaldehyde ....

 (1,3-dioxacyclobutane).

Theoretical calculations indicate that the compound is extremely unstable at room temperature (half-life of less than 1.1 μs

Microsecond

A microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...

); but may be stable at -196 °C.