Synthesis of uniformly ¹³C-labeled polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Convergent synthetic pathways were devised for efficient synthesis of a series of uniformly ¹³C labeled polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons de novo from U-¹³C-benzene and other simple commercially-available ¹³C-starting compounds. All target products were obtained in excellent yields, including the alternant PAH U-¹³C-naphthalene, U-¹³C-phenanthrene, U-¹³C-anthracene, U-¹³C-benz[a]anthracene, U-¹³C-pyrene and the nonalternant PAH U-¹³C-fluoranthene.