1,2,3,4-Tetraphenylbutadiene is an organic compound with the formula . It is a white solid.
The compound is prepared by reductive coupling of diphenylacetylene using lithium metal followed by hydrolysis of the resulting 1,4-dilithiobutadiene:
1,4-Dilithiobutadiene is a precursor to several metallacycles by salt metathesis reactions:
The isomer with mutually cis phenyl groups is common. According to X-ray crystallography, the phenyl groups are significantly rotated out of the plane of the 1,3-butadiene core.
1,1,4,4-Tetraphenylbutadiene is an isomer of 1,2,3,4-tetraphenylbutadiene with two phenyl group on each of the terminal carbon atoms of the diene. It has attracted some attention as an electroluminescent dye.