Isomers of Polycyclic Conjugated Hydrocarbons with Arbitrary Ring Sizes: Generation and Enumeration

Abstract Completely condensed polycyclic conjugated hydrocarbons are studied with respect to their numbers of C n H s isomers ( # I ) for arbitrary ring sizes. Direct combinatorial methods are applied and based on the ring-edge sum ( Σq ), viz. the sum of all edges in the q -membered rings taken individually. Explicit expressions of # I are reported for two rings ( r = 2) and three rings ( r = 3). The latter case ( r = 3) splits into structures without any internal carbon ( n i = 0) and those with one internal carbon ( n i = 1). Finally, the corresponding problem for r = 4, n i = 1 is solved by means of computer programming.