) chloride.5 It is believed that the reason many of the catalysts did not work, even though they are present in natural petroleum, is that the conditions that they were subjected to were experimental in nature. The creation of adamantane is thought to be a biogenesis of petroleum under a set of conditions that is not able to be recreated in the lab.2With the natural mechanism a mystery, a synthetic method to create the compound was sought after to allow the study of adamantane to proceed. After all, with Landa in complete control of the slim supply of adamantane, the cost of adamantane skyrocketed.6 Two methods were investigated to be able to create the natural adamantane structure: ring closure and isomerization.Before adamantane was known to the world, the starting material commonly used to synthesize adamantane and its derivatives through ring closure was being developed. In 1922, Meerwein was investigating a way to remove the bridgehead carboxymethoxy group of ring compounds, and reseal the ring structure with diiodomethane(V) and sodium. His experiments failed because the malonic ester(VI) which he created forced the reactant groups too far apart for the recycling to occur.3,4 Despite his failures, Meerwein was able to inspire other advancements of his research through the malonic ester which came to bear his name as Meerweins ester.7 This became the common starting point for the search for the path to cyclic adamantane. Bottger was the first to make great strides in the adamantane synthesis research following Meerweins lead. Starting with Meerweins ester Bottger was able to bring the ring together to create a cyclic product.6 The product was of the tricyclo-[3.3.1.13,7] decane ring system of which adamantane is a constituent, but Bottgers product still had external functional groups around the ring instead of the only hydrogen around adamantane.5 As a result, what Bottger had synthesized was not adamantane, but a derivati...
