The term chicken wire in chemistry

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....

 is used in different contexts. Most of them relate to the similarity of the regular hexagonal (honeycomb

Honeycomb

A honeycomb is a mass of hexagonal waxcells built by honey bees in their nests to contain their larvae and stores of honey and pollen.Beekeepers may remove the entire honeycomb to harvest honey...

-like) patterns found in certain chemical compounds to the mesh

Mesh

Mesh consists of semi-permeable barrier made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible/ductile material. Mesh is similar to web or net in that it has many attached or woven strands.-Types of mesh:...

 structure commonly seen in real chicken wire

Chicken wire

Chicken wire, or poultry netting, is a mesh of wire commonly used to fence poultry livestock. It is made of thin, flexible galvanized wire, with hexagonal gaps...

.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons , also known as poly-aromatic hydrocarbons or polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, are potent atmospheric pollutants that consist of fused aromatic rings and do not contain heteroatoms or carry substituents. Naphthalene is the simplest example of a PAH...

s or graphene

Graphene

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon, whose structure is one-atom-thick planar sheets of sp2-bonded carbon atoms that are densely packed in a honeycomb crystal lattice. The term graphene was coined as a combination of graphite and the suffix -ene by Hanns-Peter Boehm, who described single-layer...

s—including fullerene

Fullerene

A fullerene is any molecule composed entirely of carbon, in the form of a hollow sphere, ellipsoid, or tube. Spherical fullerenes are also called buckyballs, and they resemble the balls used in association football. Cylindrical ones are called carbon nanotubes or buckytubes...

s, carbon nanotube

Carbon nanotube

Carbon nanotubes are allotropes of carbon with a cylindrical nanostructure. Nanotubes have been constructed with length-to-diameter ratio of up to 132,000,000:1, significantly larger than for any other material...

s, and graphite

Graphite

The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...

—have a hexagonal structure that is often described as chicken wire-like.

Hexagonal molecular structures

A hexagonal structure that is often described as chicken wire-like can also be found in other types of chemical compounds. Examples are:

• Non-aromatic polycyclic hydrocarbon
  Hydrocarbon
  In organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
  
  s, e.g. steroids like cholesterol
  Cholesterol
  Cholesterol is a complex isoprenoid. Specifically, it is a waxy steroid of fat that is produced in the liver or intestines. It is used to produce hormones and cell membranes and is transported in the blood plasma of all mammals. It is an essential structural component of mammalian cell membranes...
  
  
• Flat hexagonal hydrogen bond
  Hydrogen bond
  A hydrogen bond is the attractive interaction of a hydrogen atom with an electronegative atom, such as nitrogen, oxygen or fluorine, that comes from another molecule or chemical group. The hydrogen must be covalently bonded to another electronegative atom to create the bond...
  
  ed trimesic acid
  Trimesic acid
  Trimesic acid, formally known as benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid, is a benzene derivative with three carboxylic acid groups.Trimesic acid is a planar molecule ....
  
   (benzene-1,3,5-tricarboxylic acid) or melamine-cyanuric acid complexes
• Interwoven molecule chains in the inorganic polymer NaAuS
• Complexes of the protein
  Protein
  Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
  
   clathrin
  Clathrin
  Clathrin is a protein that plays a major role in the formation of coated vesicles. Clathrin was first isolated and named by Barbara Pearse in 1975. It forms a triskelion shape composed of three clathrin heavy chains and three light chains. When the triskelia interact they form a polyhedral lattice...
  
  

Bond line notation

The skeletal formula

Skeletal formula

The skeletal formula of an organic compound is a shorthand representation of its molecular structure, developed by the organic chemist, Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. Skeletal formulae are ubiquitous in organic chemistry, because they are relatively quick and simple to draw. Carbon and...

 is a method to draw structural formula

Structural formula

The structural formula of a chemical compound is a graphical representation of the molecular structure, showing how the atoms are arranged. The chemical bonding within the molecule is also shown, either explicitly or implicitly...

s of organic compound

Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...

s where lines represent the chemical bond

Chemical bond

A chemical bond is an attraction between atoms that allows the formation of chemical substances that contain two or more atoms. The bond is caused by the electromagnetic force attraction between opposite charges, either between electrons and nuclei, or as the result of a dipole attraction...

s and the vertices represent implicit carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

 atom

Atom

The atom is a basic unit of matter that consists of a dense central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged electrons. The atomic nucleus contains a mix of positively charged protons and electrically neutral neutrons...

s. This notation is sometimes jestingly called chicken wire notation.

Placeholder for organic compounds

Chicken wire is sometimes used as a placeholder name

Placeholder name

Placeholder names are words that can refer to objects or people whose names are either temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, or unknown in the context in which they are being discussed...

 for any organic compound, similar to the use of the name John Doe

John Doe

The name "John Doe" is used as a placeholder name in a legal action, case or discussion for a male party, whose true identity is unknown or must be withheld for legal reasons. The name is also used to refer to a male corpse or hospital patient whose identity is unknown...

.

Chemical joke

It is an old joke in chemistry to draw a polycyclic hexagonal chemical structure and call this fictional compound chickenwire. By adding one or two simple chemical group

Functional group

In organic chemistry, functional groups are specific groups of atoms within molecules that are responsible for the characteristic chemical reactions of those molecules. The same functional group will undergo the same or similar chemical reaction regardless of the size of the molecule it is a part of...

s to this skeleton, the compound can then be named following the official chemical naming convention

IUPAC nomenclature

A chemical nomenclature is a set of rules to generate systematic names for chemical compounds. The nomenclature used most frequently worldwide is the one created and developed by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry ....

. Examples are:

• 1,2-Dimethyl-chickenwire in a cartoon by Nick D. Kim
  Nick D. Kim
  Nick D. Kim is an analytical environmental chemist who currently works for Waikato Regional Council. He is an honorary lecturer and scientist of chemistry at the University of Waikato in New Zealand. As a cartoonist he is known under his pseudonym Nick....
  
  

Surface plots

In computational chemistry

Computational chemistry

Computational chemistry is a branch of chemistry that uses principles of computer science to assist in solving chemical problems. It uses the results of theoretical chemistry, incorporated into efficient computer programs, to calculate the structures and properties of molecules and solids...

 a chicken wire model or chicken wire surface plot is a way to visualize molecular models by drawing the polygon

Polygon

In geometry a polygon is a flat shape consisting of straight lines that are joined to form a closed chain orcircuit.A polygon is traditionally a plane figure that is bounded by a closed path, composed of a finite sequence of straight line segments...

 mesh of their surface (defined e.g. as the van der Waals radius

Van der Waals radius

The van der Waals radius, r, of an atom is the radius of an imaginary hard sphere which can be used to model the atom for many purposes. It is named after Johannes Diderik van der Waals, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics, as he was the first to recognise that atoms had a finite size and to...

 or a certain electron density

Electron density

Electron density is the measure of the probability of an electron being present at a specific location.In molecules, regions of electron density are usually found around the atom, and its bonds...

).