Dodecahydroxycyclohexane


Dodecahydroxycyclohexane is an organic compound with molecular formula C6O12H12 or C612. It is a sixfold geminal diol with a cyclohexane backbone and can be regarded as a sixfold hydrate of cyclohexanehexone.

Dihydrate

The dihydrate C6O12H12·2H2O can be crystallized from methanol as colorless plates or prisms, that decomposes at about 100 °C.
model of the molecular cell of dodecahydroxycyclohexane dihydrate
This compound was synthetized by J. Lerch in 1862 by oxidation of benzenehexol C66 or tetrahydroxy-p-benzoquinone C64O2 and characterized by R. Nietzki and others in 1885, although the product was for a long time assumed to be hexaketocyclohexane with water of crystallization.
Indeed, this product is still commonly marketed as cyclohexanehexone octahydrate, hexaketocyclohexane octahydrate, triquinoyl octahydrate and similar names. Its true nature was suspected since the 1950s or earlier, but was confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis only in 2005